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On the horse was a pretty little mountain girl.” (Page 30.) 


Cis Martin 


OR 

THE FURRINERS IN THE TENNESSEE 
MOUNTAINS 


BY / 

LOUISE R. BAKER 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

F. P. KLIX 



NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS 
1898 


■PZs 


18309 


Copyright by 

Eaton & mains, 

1898. 


ri^OCOPrES RECEIVED. 



COfty 

le^Q, • 




'[A 


TO MY MOTHER 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

“ It’s a Furriner, Sure ! ” 7 

CHAPTER II. 

The Martins 22 

CHAPTER HI. 

The Mountain Whites 37 

CHAPTER IV. 

Jack 52 

CHAPTER V. 

A Stroll on the Mountain 71 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Husking Party 92 

CHAPTER VH. 

Separation no 

CHAPTER VIH. 

The Little Schoolmistress 128 

CHAPTER IX. 

Jake Mudd 147 

CHAPTER X. 

Jack Seeks His Fortune 164 

CHAPTER XI. . 

A Christmas Present 182 

5 


6 


Contents. 


CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

Dolph's Ambition 200 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Ride to Bean Creek 217 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Dolph Takes Command 234 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Triumph of “Semiramis” 252 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


“ On the horse was a pretty little mountain girl.” Frontispiece 

“ The wolf staggered, stumbled, and fell ” facing 86 

“ I’m bringin’ you the Christmas gift” “ 196 

“ The tall horse stepped carefully into the stream ” “ 251 


CIS Martin 


CHAPTER 1. 

"IPs a Fumner, Sure!^ 

I WAS sitting in the fast express running 
from New York to New Orleans, and I was 
thinking hard. I had ever so many things 
to think of. I was sixteen years old, I had just 
graduated at a select school for young ladies, 
and I was on my way from a New York town 
to the mountains of East Tennessee. My 
grandfather, Mr. Richard Randolph, had not 
wished me to go to East Tennessee ; neither had 
my Aunt Lavinia ; but while I was sorry to say 
good-bye to grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia, I felt 
perfectly certain that the right place for me to 
be at that time was with my father and mother. 

Three years before father had filled the posi- 
tion of professor of Latin and Greek at a New 
York college. People said that he was killing 
himself while the other professors were taking 
life easy. It would have been better, perhaps, for 
my father to have taken life easy in the manner 
of his brother professors, for the college de- 
clared him to be “ broken down before his 
time,” and thereupon dispensed with his serv- 
ices. 


7 


8 


Cis Martin. 


But father was not really an old man. He 
was sixty-two, and he had a healthy young fam- 
ily to support. His boyhood had been passed 
in the timber lands of the South; he prided 
himself upon his knowledge of the lumber busi- 
ness, and he all at once saw vast resources in 
the mountains of Tennessee and North Caro- 
lina. If he could form a partnership with a 
man of capital, the time might arrive when he 
would be able to say it was a good thing that 
he had his dismissal from the college. He 
grew quite young and light-hearted over the 
project, and in the end was fortunate enough to 
find a partner. But there were those among 
my father’s friends who shook their heads 
gravely, remembering that Dr. Martin had also 
been light-hearted and hopeful over the book 
that had never met with a publisher. But from 
the beginning I always believed in the ultimate 
success of Semiramis. 

Mother cried a little over the future home in 
the Tennessee mountains, but she said, “Yes, 
I would be glad to go, delighted to go.” 
Grandpapa declared that father had better teach 
a little common school than attempt anything 
so wild as the lumber business in the wilder- 
ness, and Aunt Lavinia astonished the whole 
family by crying out that she would never be 
willing to sacrifice herself and her children for 
any man’s foolish dream, 


a Furriner, Sure! '* 


9 


But dear mother’s greatest trouble at that 
worrying time was myself. 

** I cannot bear to think of taking Cecelia 
away from school,” she said, hopelessly. 

‘‘ O, Cissy can run wild for a year or two,” 
said father, easily. ‘ ‘ It won’t hurt her. Why, the 
mountain air will give her pretty, red cheeks.” 

‘ ‘ Cecelia will probably have to teach school 
for a living by and by,” said Aunt Lavinia, 
severely. ‘ ‘ It would be a sin and a shame to 
deprive her of the means of an education.” 

‘‘ As to that,” said father, “it is not my in- 
tention to bring up my sons and daughters 
without education. Even in the Tennessee 
mountains, I dare say, I can manage to hear 
the children their lessons in the evenings.” 

“A man cannot serve two masters,” retorted 
Aunt Lavinia. ' ' If you’re to get rich at the 
lumber business, you cannot be fooling about 
the children’s lessons.” 

Father bit his lip. He was never quite equal 
to Aunt Lavinia’s sharp tongue ; besides, he was 
always gentle with women. 

“ I hate to think of Cecelia leaving school at 
thirteen,” said mother. 

I was afraid, when I heard mother say this, 
that she did not believe in the wealth to be 
obtained in the timber lands of East Tennessee, 
and even thought, with Aunt Lavinia, that the 
day might come when I would be obliged to 


10 


Cis Martin. 


teach school for a living. I rebelled against the 
thought. It seemed an injustice to father. He 
had lived in Tennessee ; he knew all about the 
fortune to be made in those great forests. He 
had told us about the huge walnuts and oaks 
and maples until I for one had fairly glowed. 
Why should father’s own people doubt his abil- 
ity to keep his oldest daughter from teaching 
school for a living ? Then, too, mother, as well 
as grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia, always forgot 
about the historical novel. If father succeeded 
only in making a very little money over and 
above expenses, he could publish Seniiramis. 
The publication of Semiramis meant a fortune 
in reality. We could all return to the neigh- 
borhood of the college and be grand people, in- 
stead of the family of the Latin and Greek pro- 
fessor who was killing himself while the other 
professors took life easy. 

It was grandpapa who arranged about me. 
“What is all this talk about Cecelia being taken 
away from school ? ” he asked mother. “ Cer- 
tainly she must keep on at school. She has 
three years more before she graduates.” So it 
was settled that I was to continue at the select 
school for young ladies and live with grand- 
papa and Aunt Lavinia. After my graduation, 
if my parents wished it, I was to follow them to 
Tennessee — “that is,” grandpapa added, tartly, 
“unless Dr. Martin has made his fortune and 


“ It*s a Furriner, Sure! 


11 


returned to civilization.” I fell asleep that 
night with the tears all over my face because I 
had to wait three years before I could go to 
East Tennessee. 

The three years passed along evenly enough. 
Grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia were very kind to 
me; indeed, grandpapa loved me as if I were 
his own child. He liked to hear stories of the 
school and he would listen with pleasure to the 
verses that I wrote; and, although he still 
thought nothing at all of the historical novel 
that father had written and which was truly 
very fine, he declared that my verses showed 
decided talent. He would pat me on the shoul- 
der and declare that I was his favorite writer. 
Even Aunt Lavinia, who wasn’t a person much 
given to praise, said that my verses and school 
compositions showed talent, and she began to 
throw out hints that if I worked assiduously, I 
might be able to earn my living by contributing 
to the magazines instead of teaching school. 
But Aunt Lavinia, like grandpapa, never re- 
ferred to the historical novel. For a fact, both 
she and grandpapa, at the time of father’s writ- 
ing the book, expressed the opinion that a Greek 
scholar might spend his evenings to better ad- 
vantage. Grandpapa was so old and white that 
I did not dare to mention Semiramis when he 
praised my verses, but to Aunt Lavinia I said, 
“ I inherit my talent from father.” 


12 


Cis Martin. 


She pretended that she didn’t understand. 

Inherit your talent from your father, Cecelia ! ” 
she exclaimed. “Why, child, I thought your 
father was a lumber dealer and general mill 
manager in the Tennessee mountains.” 

“ My father,” I retorted, with flaming cheeks, 
“ is the author of Semiramis .' ” 

“An unpublished and unappreciated novel,” 
said my aunt. “ I trust, Cecelia, that you will 
have better luck with your manuscripts than 
your father had with his.” 

“ If ever I write a line half as good as any 
that father has written, I shall be more than 
satisfied,” I said. 

“ Your father is a visionary man,” continued 
Aunt Lavinia, not angrily, but in a matter-of- 
fact way that was fairly maddening. ‘ ‘ He be- 
lieves in himself. He sees fortunes floating 
around him and imagines that they are within 
his grasp. He has buried your poor mother 
and five children in an uncivilized region, 
where, as you know by the letters you receive, 
all the people eat snuff.” 

“ Father does not mean mother and the chil- 
dren to spend their lives in the Tennessee moun- 
tains, Aunt Lavinia,” I returned. “ There is 
no finer timber anywhere in the United States. 
Even Jack wrote me a description of the enor- 
mous trees.” 

“Your mother is starving herself, soul and 


“It's a Furriner, Sure!" 13 

body, in those miserable mountains,” said Aunt 
Lavinia, and she turned and went out of the 
room. It was very seldoni that Aunt Lavinia 
lost her self-control, but there was the sound of 
tears in her voice when she spoke of mother. 
I looked after her with a lump in my throat. 

I was not surprised, when the three years 
were over, that grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia 
asked me to remain with them, nor was I very 
much surprised when letters reached me from 
both father and mother granting me permission 
to do so. But I read between the lines in those 
letters from the “miserable mountains,” and I 
said to myself that nothing should keep me 
away from East Tennessee. When I explained 
to grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia that I consid- 
ered it my duty to go home and teach the 
younger children and help mother with the 
housework, they discontinued to urge me to 
stay, but they did not like it at all that I was 
going. 

“Cecelia is like her father,” Aunt Lavinia 
said, tartly, to grandpapa. “ She sees vast pos- 
sibilities in the Tennessee mountains, whereas 
it would be better for the whole family if Dr. 
Martin would accept a position in one of our 
public schools.” 

“Yes,” said grandpapa, “ it would be much 
better.” 

But when the fast express rocked into the 


14 


Cis Martin. 


State of Tennessee I was thinking altogether of 
the new home and wondering how father and 
mother and the children really were getting 
along, for, to tell the truth, none of the letters 
had been very satisfactory. 

Mother, as I remembered her, was such a 
pleasant, pretty little woman, fond of society 
and amusements. The people who had shaken 
their heads over father’s venture had been sur- 
prised that mother would agree to anything so 
rash as carrying her family to the wilderness of 
the timber lands of Tennessee; they did not 
understand how cut to the heart she was over 
father’s dismissal from the college; how she 
wanted to get away from everything that re- 
minded her of college life. There were times, 
too, when my mother persuaded herself into be- 
lieving in father’s glowing dreams of the wealth 
in the lumber business, and had thought of the 
pleasure it would be to return rich and prosper- 
ous. I am afraid she resolved to have nothing 
whatever to do with any of the other professors, 
but to live aloof in her magnificence with the 
man who, “ broken down before his time,” had 
revived enough to build up a fortune. Of course 
the college, for the honor of the thing, would 
beg him to refill his old position, and, of course, 
he would refuse. I wondered if mother had 
changed during the three years, and I wished 
that the fortune had been made and we all 


It’s a Furriner, Sure! ” 


IS 


might go back at once, for grandpapa’s white 
face haunted me and Aunt Lavinia had been 
very kind. 

Then I fell to thinking of the children. Jack, 
at the age of ten, had been in the habit of tell- 
ing people inquiring into his future business 
that when he grew to be a man he intended to 
help father at the college, and he on one oc- 
casion confided to me upon the promise of 
secrecy that he also intended to write a book. 
Jack was thirteen now. Was he still solemn 
and independent ? Did he still cherish the idea 
of writing a book ? It had been a long time 
since Jack had written me a letter. Mother said 
that she thought he was afraid I would laugh at 
the spelling. Aunt Lavinia had been right in 
declaring that father could not manage the lum- 
ber business and hear the children’s lessons. 
They attended school in the mountain school- 
house, and the school term began in August 
and ended at Christmas. Aunt Lavinia’s name- 
sake, Little Lavinia, as she was called at grand- 
papa’s, was ten years old; Mattie was eight; 
Tom, seven ; and Margaret not much over five. 
Of course Tom and Margaret would have no 
recollection of me at all, and even Lavinia and 
Mattie must have almost forgotten me. Aunt 
Lavinia was rather proud of her namesake’s 
good looks, of her curly yellow hair and her 
deep blue eyes. If the mountain air gave chil- 


16 


Cis Martin. 


dren red cheeks, as father had prophesied, then 
my sister Lavinia must be a little beauty. As 
I drew nearer my destination I began making 
very unselfish plans for Lavinia. She should 
go back to New York and live with grandpapa 
and Aunt Lavinia and attend the select school 
for young ladies. Perhaps grandpapa would 
say, “Send the other little girl too,” and that 
would be the end of the Tennessee mountains 
for Lavinia and Matilda Martin, for, of course, 
father would make some kind of a fortune be- 
fore either of these two were ready to graduate. 
Then a sudden heaviness fell upon my spirits. 
Suppose father should never make any fortune 
at all. Suppose, at the age of sixteen, I was 
entering the Tennessee mountains to take up my 
abode there for life. Just suppose this was to be ! 

The conductor called out the name of the sta- 
tion at which I was to change cars, and I stepped 
off at a dilapidated Southern city. The por- 
ter carried my bag to the ladies’ waiting room, 
and then I went out to look after my baggage. 
I had never traveled before, and so was not ac- 
customed to looking after baggage, but grand- 
papa had told me to inquire my way to the bag- 
gage room and to give my check to the baggage 
master, who would thereupon recheck my bag- 
gage for the narrow-gauge road up to Roan 
Mountain. 

I had a great time finding the way to the bag- 


“It's a Furriner, Sure!" 


17 


gage room. One old farmer, whom I asked to 
point it out to me, said he guessed if I went in 
the settin’ room, they’d see to. the matter thar, 
but the settin’ room proved to be the gentlemen’s 
waiting room. When I did find my way to the 
baggage room I was met with another difficulty. 
The baggage master informed me, with a smile 
at my ignorance, that they never checked trunks 
for the narry gauge. “ I’ll jest mark it fer 
you,” he said, “and when you git up the 
mount’n you claim it; it’ll be all right.” With 
this I was forced to be satisfied, although grand- 
papa had told me several times to be sure to 
get my check from the baggage master. The 
man wished, also, to mark my large leather bag 
that had been checked from New York, but I 
decided to run no risks with it. I heard him 
say when I went out, carrying the bag, “ Got a 
lot o’ grit for a gal; Yankee, mebbe, I reckon.” 

I could not find a man to carry my bags 
around to the car, which the station agent told 
me was waiting on the narrow gauge, so I had 
to carry them myself, although they were quite 
a load. There was a great number of people 
going up the mountain. The queer-looking 
little car was waiting far away from the plat- 
form, and I saw one gaunt mountain woman 
after another climbing into it. I did not see 
how I could possibly get up the high step unless 
some kind person offered to help me. Suddenly 
2 


18 


Cis Martin. 


a cheerful voice cried out behind me : ‘ ‘ What 
air all you ladies climbin’ into that thar car fer? 
Come plumb back yer this minute.” 

Feeling certain that the cheerful voice be- 
longed to the conductor, and that he was going 
to order the queer little car to be brought up to 
the platform, I put my bags down beside me 
and waited. 

The women who had been climbing into the 
car all went by me, however, and after a while 
the man whom I had taken for the conductor 
came alongside of me and said, “ I don’t know 
you, but that’s all right ; come on and git some 
melon.” He was a round-faced and happy-look- 
ing man, evidently a farmer from the mountains. 

“ Don’t be bashful,” he said, persuasively, and 
this time his hand was on my arm. “ Come on 
and git some melon, little gal.” 

I thanked the man for his unexpected hospi- 
tality, but said that I had been traveling a long 
way and was too tired to eat melon. It was a 
strange experience to see all the people about 
the railway station leisurely eating watermelon 
while the train waited. 

After a while another man came along, and I 
plucked up my spirit and asked him to help me 
into the car with my bags. 

I shall never forget that ride up the mountains 
on the narrow gauge. The little car went along 
rapidly , considering it was going up the mountain, 


“It's a Furriner, Sure! " 


19 


the engine tooting out imperatively every now 
and then at a stray cow that dashed heedlessly 
off the track and almost tumbled into the ravine. 
It is said to be a dangerous piece of railroad, 
but I knew nothing of its danger. Once I thought 
I saw a bear’s cave on before, and then I laughed 
to myself at the darkness of the tunnel. On one 
side of the track the rocks rose like a wall, and 
down below, still among rocks, rushed and 
foamed the river Doe. 

At a station in the mountain, about ten miles 
up, the majority of the people left the car. They 
got off by twos and threes at several succeeding 
stations until there were but two passengers left, 
a middle-aged mountain woman and myself. I 
felt the woman’s eyes fixed steadily upon me, 
and after a while she moved across to the seat 
in front of me. Then she turned toward me 
a friendly, smiling face. 

“ Air you Cis Martin ? ” she asked. 

Her question scattered my wits. When they 
came back to me I said, coolly, ‘ ‘ I am a daughter 
of Dr. Martin.” 

“ I thought ’twas you,” said the woman, “ and 
yet I thought ’twasn’t. I didn’t see who it could 
be but you. First thing when I seen you I said 
to myself, ‘ Thar she is; that’s Cis at last.’ Yet 
I couldn’t believe ’twas you, for little Marg and 
them folks have been givin’ it out that you was 
sixteen years old. I said to myself when I first 


20 


Cis Martin. 


laid eyes on you, ' Thar’s Cis ; thar she is at last,’ 
but I ain’t yet got over the surprise o’ yer short 
hair and yer short frock.” 

“ My dress reaches to my shoe tops,” I said; 
“ that’s the way everybody wears them.” 

The woman laughed with intense enjoyment. 
“ And how ’bout yer short curls?” she asked. 

‘‘I had a fever,” I explained, and then I 
looked impolitely out of the window. 

But the woman’s pleasant laugh brought my 
eyes back to her again. She wore a high black 
hat, trimmed with four different kinds of ribbon 
and three plumes of different colors. Her arms 
were resting on the back of the seat in front of 
me. She had the blackest eyes that I ever saw. 

‘‘ Laws! we’ve jest had lots o’ fun out o’ the 
doctor,” she said, in her loud and cheerful voice. 
^ ‘ Len Thomson’s folks was the first to call him 
up at night. Then Mis’ Lucks, she sent for him. 
That was in the daytime. Mis’ Lucks’s folks 
thought sure she was dyin’. Sam Lucks, he 
run all the way, so feered he wouldn’t get 
the doctor to the house in time. Well, the 
doctor was off in the mount’n, lookin’ at the 
trees, and Mis’ Martin, she went along home 
with Sam. And laws ! if she didn’t cure Mis’ 
Lucks good as a man ! We’ve just had no end 
o’ fun ’bout the doctor bein’ off mindin’ the tim- 
ber and Mis’ Martin goin’ round visitin’ the sick 
folks.” 


“It's a Furriner, Sure! ** 21 

‘‘ Is there much sickness in the Tennessee 
mountains? ” I asked. 

''Plenty of it,” returned the woman, "but 
thar’s sickness everywhar. You said you was 
sick when they cut yer hair off? I don’t reckon 
you was as bad as John down yon to the river. 
They had to tie him to the bed. They 
shaved his head fer to put on plasters, but 
his hair didn’t come out fine and curly like 
your’n. When I seen you get into the car down 
thar to the city I said to myself, ' Thar she is ; 
thar’s Cis at last.’ I knowed ’twas you ’cause 
you had the man helpin’ you and you carryin’ 
nothin’. I said to myself, ‘ It’s a furriner, sure, 
and the only furriner expected up to Roan is Cis 
Martin ; ’ but I was all knocked to pieces when 
I seen your short frock. Laws ! but little Marg 
and them folks will be surprised! ” 


22 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER 11. 

The Martins. 

‘‘ Y LIVE over to the gris’mill,” said my new 
I acquaintance, resting her chin for a mo- 
^ ment upon her folded arms. “ I reckon 
I’ll see you pretty often. All the children 
comes to the gris’mill. Do you like corn 
brad?” 

I stared back at her, and then said that some- 
times I liked corn bread. 

“ Mis’ Martin don’t like corn brad,” she went 
on ; “ she don’t like it fer nothin’, but little Marg 
and them folks like corn brad. Tom likes corn- 
brad and honey, and Jack he jest likes plain 
corn brad.” 

This coupling of the names of Tom and Jack 
with that of little Marg caused me to inquire, 
“ Who is little Marg? ” 

The woman almost fell off the car seat in the 
exuberance of her mirth. 

“ Laws!” she cried, “ if you ain’t gunnogive 
a body as much fun as the doctor ! The doctor 
he calls back to Bob Thompson when Bob hol- 
lered for him under the winder, ‘ What in the 
name o’ common sense do you want me to go to 
Len Thompson’s fer in the middle o’ the night?’ 
‘’Cause Len Thompson’s done busted a rib,’ 


The Martins. 


23 


cried Bob. Here little Marg’s ben settin’ in 
the door o’ the gris’mill fer the past six weeks 
tellin’ me about you cornin’ home and about you 
gittin’ prizes at that big school in New York, 
and here air you askin’ me who little Marg is. 
Little Marg,” she added, with a twinkle in her 
eyes and something of my own tone of voice 
when I had answered her question in regard to 
my name, is a daughter of Doctor Martin.” 

O, my little sister Margaret!” I cried. 

“ That’s her,” .said the woman, “ but we folks 
call her little Marg. I reckon as yer maw wrote 
you ’bout little Marg gittin’ lost on the moun- 
tun?” 

‘‘ No,” I said, becoming interested, ‘‘mother 
never wrote me anything about it.” 

“It was a year back, ” said the gristmill woman 
smiling at me harder than ever. ‘ ‘ One day 
the doctor comes home right early from the saw- 
mill and asks Mis’ Martin whar’s little Marg, fer 
she generally seen him cornin’ way up the road 
and run to meet him to git a ride. Her maw 
didn’t know whar she was, and by and by all 
the children gathered in, but little Marg wasn’t 
among ’em. Then the biggest hue and cry that 
was ever heered in these mountuns was set up 
by them furriners, and everybody begun a look- 
in’ fer little Marg. Thar’d been a bear scare 
the week before, and the bear hadn’t been 
caught, so thar was nothin’ fer Mis’ Martin to 


24 


Cis Martin. 


believe but that the bear had done took little 
Marg. 

‘‘Well, the folks all started out on the hunt, 
and the doctor trotted off on his gray mare, car- 
ryin’ a gun along with him. Uncle Ben and 
Aunt Sabina they was in the hunt, though Un- 
cle Ben was crooked up with the rheumatis and 
Aunt Sabina had best been in bed swallor- 
in’ doctor’s medicine. As for me, I was jest 
a-rackin’ round with Dolph follerin’ my frock 
tail. I never seen sech carryin’ on in all my 
born days. I could most die a-laughin’ when- 
ever I think o’ yer maw prayin’. She’d look up 
to the trees, claspin’ her hands and cry out, 
‘ Lord, tell me whar Marget is; Lord, let me 
see Marget agin alive and safe.’ Little Marg is 
plumb good at climbin, but she couldn’t climb 
them trees now let alone a year back. Viny 
and Mat was bawlin’ at the top o’ their voices ; 
seemed like the louder Mis’ Martin would pray 
the louder them gals would bawl. Jack had a 
stick a-pokin’ about in the leaves, a-huntin’ fer 
little Marg. I don’t reckon as the boy knowed 
what he was about. It was gittin’ dark,” the 
woman’s voice sank to an impressive whisper; 
‘ ‘ the sun had gone plumb down behind yon 
mountun ; we was mortal tired lookin’ fer little 
Marg; the girls was hoarse with hollerin’, but 
yer maw never left off prayin’, ‘ Lord, show me 
little Marget ; tell me whar she is. Lord ! ’ she 


The Martins. 


25 


cried, glancin’ up to the tree tops and the grape- 
vines ; ‘ let me see her once agin alive and 
safe.’ Then down the road at a gallop comes 
the doctor on the gray mare and before him was 
little Marg. She was bawlin’ louder’n anybody, 
’cause her paw had told her how her maw was 
most scared to death and in danger o’ prayin’ 
herself to pieces. Little Marg had been off 
fishin’. She’d been tendin’ her line and hadn’t 
noticed the daylight slippin’ plumb away. Of 
all the kissin’ and the cry in’ that went on over 
little Marg ! ” The woman from the gristmill 
lay back in her seat and laughed. “ If you’d 
been thar,” she added, turning about again, “ I 
reckon you’d either been prayin’ like yer maw 
or a-bawlin’ like Mat and Viny. Tom he was 
the most sensible person on the mountun that 
day. He jest stayed in the big hotel under the 
bed, with his eyes shet and his ears stopped up. 
I had fer to pull him out by the heels to tell him 
little Marg was found. ‘Laws, Tom!’ I said, 

‘ thar ain’t nothin’ the matter ; little Marg was 
jest gone a-fishin’.’ Tom said he knowed thar 
wasn’t nothin’ the matter, and he kicked and 
crawled back under the bed. First thing the 
doctor found o’ little Marg was a string of her 
pink sunbonnet, and he thought sure the bear 
had gone off with her, and I guess as he seized 
hold of his old gun mighty tight and let the 
mountuns know what he done thought o’ the 


26 


Cis Martin. 


bear ; then he come across a bit of little Marg’s 
frock where she tore herself in the bushes, and 
then he come upon little Marg herself, settin’ on 
a rock with her legs hangin’ over the river, a- 
fishin’ without any hook, and never noticin’ that 
the daylight had plumb slipped away.” 

“ Did anyone ever catch the bear?” I inquired 
with a great terror upon me. I had not thought 
of the Tennessee mountains as a place of dan- 
ger; lonely and miserable, perhaps, as Aunt 
Lavinia called them, but not dangerous. “ I 
did not know that bears stole children nowa- 
days.” 

“ Laws, thar ain’t so many bears,” said the 
woman, complacently. But the men was 
bound to git hold o’ that one ; somehow every- 
body was feered it might meet with little Marg 
in the end. It was the biggest bear ever shot 
in these mountuns ; it was as big as a cow. Jim 
Maxel and Cap Waggoner they carried it plumb 
to the town, and they got fifty dollars for the 
meat and the skin. It certainly was a power- 
ful bear. I reckon now it would a-skeered lit- 
tle Marg if it had come along while she was 
afishin’.” 

‘ ‘ Are there any other wild animals in the 
Tennessee mountains ? ” I asked. 

“ O, several,” responded the woman from the 
gristmill. “We got wild-cats and foxes and 
wolves.” 


The Martins. 


27 


Wolves! ” I repeated, with a shudder. 

“Yes, we got a heap o’ wolves,” said the 
woman. ‘ ‘ They was into John Wabashes’ sheep 
last week and near killed the whole flock. But 
laws! thar ain’t nothin’ so bad in these yer 
mountuns as the milk sickness.” 

“ What is that? ” I asked. 

‘ ‘ Didn’t yer maw write you ’bout the milk 
sickness neither? ” asked the woman, in a sur- 
prised voice. “ She and the doctor and none of 
’em never seen nothin’ like it before they come 
to Roan. You see, thar’s something that the 
cows git in the pasture, nobody knows what ’tis, 
but the cow sickens on it, and the sickness goes 
into the milk. If the cow has a calf and the 
calf drinks the milk, it’s bound to die, and if 
folks drink the milk, they’re pretty sure to die. 
They used always fer to die. Once thar was 
twenty-seven graves over yon on the mountun, 
and none of ’em ever had the rain on ’em ; jest 
that quick folks was took with the milk sickness. 
Now there’s a remedy. If a body s wallers apple 
brandy and honey and can keep it down, thar’s 
a chance o’ their gettin’ shed o’ the sickness ; 
but like as no it’ll come back agin every year, 
and they’re always porely. The doctor won’t 
let none o’ his folks drink milk if the cows git a 
run on the mountun. He keeps ’em in a lot 
back o’ the barn. But little Marg and Tom they 
drink milk whar they can git it. Little Marg 


28 


Cis Martin. 


she ain’t afeerd o’ that nor nothin’ else. I tell 
her I reckon her maw and the doctor would give 
her fits if they was to catch her drinkin’ milk 
down to Fird Lovey’s.” 

When I asked if there were any snakes in the 
Tennessee mountains the woman told me a 
number of snake stories, each one more horrible 
than the preceding, and every now and then 
she laughed convulsively at the expression of 
my face. 

‘‘ Laws ! ” she said, “but you’ll hear a power- 
ful lot of things that’ll astonish you when you 
git to Roan. Jack he used to think the story of 
the two niggers was the worst thing he come 
across in the way of a tale. If he didn’t go 
home and ask his maw if snakes was ever called 
niggers! You see, when he first come yer he 
was the greatest boy fer takin’ walks around the 
roads and fastenin’ on to folks and askin’ ques- 
tions. Laws! Uncle Bob says that Jack has 
asked him many and many a question that he 
couldn’t answer, and the preacher he ’lows that 
Jack has asked him two or three questions that 
he couldn’t answer. Now Jack gallops about on 
his hoss, but when he first come he done a lot 
o’ walkin’. Once he fastened on to Mary Hullen 
as she was trampin’ back from the creek store, 
and he begun a-questionin’ her about different 
things, and Mary was huntin’ up what she could 
to tell him. They was cornin’ up the big hill 


The Martins. 


29 


when Mary points out a stump in the field to the 
right and says to Jack, ‘You see that stump 
thar?’ Jack says yes, he sees the stump, and 
he takes a powerful look at it. ‘Well,’ says 
Mary, ‘ a long time ago when my brother Ned 
wan’t nothin’ but a slip of a boy, about fifteen 
or so, he was walkin’ up this yer road with his 
gun, and he seen two niggers over thar in the 
field nigh to the stump. He jumps over the 
fence quick as a wink and makes the niggers 
lay down, and he lays down beside ’em, and he 
shoots straight at the first nigger’s head, ’lowin’ 
that the shot would go through the two of ’em. 
He thought both the niggers was plumb dead, 
and he drug ’em away in the field and covered 
’em with brush, but when he went back the next 
mornin’ to look at ’em only one was thar ; the 
other nigger had come to and skipped. Mary 
she told Jack that if the law could have laid it 
on her brother, Ned would a-been sent to the 
pen’tentiary for twenty years. Mary says that 
Jack asked her in the funniest kind of a voice 
why the law would a-sent her brother to the 
penitentiary for twenty years, and she told him 
because killin’ niggers was a pen’tentiary of- 
fense ; but even after that Jack he went home 
and asked his maw if people ever called snakes 
niggers. He was the funniest feller. When 
he found out them two niggers was big boys, 
bigger’n Ned, he laid down in the mountuns and 


30 


Cis Martin. 


cried fit to break his heart. But laws! Jack 
Martin ain’t no cry baby now.” 

The conductor came along then and took pos- 
session of my large bag and the woman’s largest 
bundles, remarking to me that we had only a 
“ half ” further to go before reaching the station. 

Don’t let my plunder bust through the 
wrappin’s,” said my new acquaintance. 

Suddenly she put her head out of the car win- 
dow, brought it in equally sudden, and placing 
her hand on my shoulder, bade me “ look.” 

This is what I saw out of the car window : A 
boy of about thirteen in his shirt sleeves with a 
ragged wStraw hat falling about his face. He was 
holding a tall, bony black horse by the bridle, 
and sitting on the horse was a pretty little 
mountain girl. The little girl’s bonnet was 
hanging down her back ; her feet were bare ; 
her scanty calico dress did not quite cover her 
bare knees. She was looking eagerly toward 
the approaching train. On another horse a little 
away from the platform were three children, all 
bareheaded and barefooted, two little girls and 
a boy. The sunshine was all over them. I had 
never seen a prettier picture. 

“Are they your children?” I asked, smiling 
at the gristmill woman. 

She laughed delightedly. 

“Aren’t they your children? ” I said, disap- 
pointed. 


The Martins. 


31 


‘Laws! ” gasped the woman, if you ain’t 
gunno be more fun than yer maw and the doctor. 
I ain’t got nobody but Dolph. Them children 
have come to meet you; it’s little Marg and 
them folks.” 

The train came to a standstill, and the next 
minute I was on the platform. The boy, whose 
face I saw for the first time, advanced toward 
me, bashfully holding out his hand. 

“ You’re Jack? ” I said, almost in a whisper, 
and stooped and kissed him. 

Then the other boy and the two little girls 
slid down from the bay horse and came slowly 
forward, the girls pushing the boy, and I kissed 
them too, but I did not know Lavinia from 
Mattie ; and then I turned to little Marg, who 
was regarding me with evident curiosity. 

“ Won’t you kiss me, Margaret? ” I asked. I 
was just a trifle bashful too. 

The small girl on the big black horse bent her 
head with an almost condescending manner and 
allowed me to kiss her; then she said, in much 
the manner of the woman from the gristmill, 
“ Why, laws! you’re nothin’ but a girl! ” and I 
knew that I had surprised and perhaps disap- 
pointed little Marg. 

I had known that I would go up to Roan from 
the station on horseback, and I had a riding 
skirt in my satchel. I went into one of the small 
houses near by and put on my riding skirt, and 


32 


Cis Martin. 


when I came out I caught Tom laughing. He 
thought it was a funny thing for me to go into 
a house to put on a riding skirt. Then Jack 
helped me on the big bay horse and stuck Tom 
on in front of me, and Lavinia scrambled on be- 
hind. I wouldn’t have known it was Lavinia 
only that little Marg called the other little girl 
“Mat.” 

Roan, as I already knew by mother’s letters, 
consisted of about half a dozen scattered houses 
and a schoolhouse. The postoffice was in one 
of the houses, and the schoolhouse was also the 
church. 

We were a very silent party as we started 
from the station in the direction of Roan. It 
was a beautiful ride, winding about ; now we 
were looking down on tree tops, now we were 
fording a river, now we were leisurely climbing 
a hill. I was rather frightened at the bridges. 
They were made of boards that had never been 
nailed, in consequence of which they were terri- 
bly warped. Between the bridges, too, over 
damp pieces of road, planks were laid in the 
same manner. Tom snickered when I said I 
thought the roads were dangerous, and Jack 
said that the people considered them vastly 
improved since the timbers had been put 
down. 

Suddenly the little girl behind me spoke. 
“ Tell Cissy about the ghost. Jack,” she said. 


The Martins. 


33 


‘‘Why don’t you tell her yourself?” de- 
manded Jack. 

We were riding along in dense shade. Below 
us to the right was a ravine, and down in the 
ravine was the dashing river Doe. On the other 
side rose the mountain hard and stony. 

“ What is it about the ghost? ” I asked, look- 
ing around at Lavinia ; but my sister’s blue eyes 
were gazing intently at the river Doe. 

Mattie punched Jack in the ribs. “ Tell 
Cissy about it. Jack,” she ordered ; “ tell her all 
about it.” 

“ There isn’t very much to tell,” said Jack. 
“ Only a man — ” 

.“A soldier,” said Tom, impressively. 

“ Well, a soldier,” continued Jack, “was hid- 
ing in these mountains during the war — ” 

“Our war,” said Tom, proudly. 

“ The civil war, of course,” said Jack. “Tell 
about him yourself, Tom, if you want to.” 

“O, go on. Jack,” ordered Mattie. 

“He didn’t have nothin’ to eat,” said little 
Marg. 

“ And he starved, that’s all,” said Jack. “ I 
said it wasn’t much.” 

“You haven’t said a word about ghost, "" 
muttered Tom. 

“ Tell Cissy about the ghost. Jack,” repeated 
Lavinia. 

Thus urged. Jack continued the story. If at 
3 


34 


Cis Martin. 


midnight people passed the lonely spot in the 
mountain near which the man had perished of 
hunger, it was said that they could hear dis- 
tinctly the sound of the saddle hitting against 
the sides of the horse, as if a man were gallop- 
ing his horse wildly. Jack finished the ghost 
story by saying that he didn’t know whether it 
were true or not; whereupon the rest of the 
family of young Martins found their voices all 
at once. 

“Not true ? well. Jack Martin ! ” cried Lavinia. 

“ Uncle Ben says it’s true, and Aunt Sabina 
says it’s true. Uncle Ben heard the ghost one 
night when he come home from the station,” 
cried Mattie, excitedly. 

“ It is true,” declared little Marg. 

“ I know it’s true,” said Tom, “ because if it 
wasn’t, Jake Mudd would say so.” 

We came to a very swift little river, and I 
begged Tom to take the horse through care- 
fully, and little Marg burst out laughing at my 
fear. 

“ I saw Mis’ Slade get off the train,” said 
Mattie. “ She had a whole lot of plunder.” 

“I seen her too,” said little Marg. “ I flung 
her a kiss, and she flung me a kiss back.” 
Then my small sister turned her big eyes upon 
me and inquired, “ Do you like corn brad ? ” 

“ Mis’ Slade lives at the gristmill,” explained 
Mattie. “ We go there to get corn meal. Mis’ 


The Martins. 


35 


Slade makes the corn meal herself, and it’s just 
beautiful.” 

“ Pshaw!” said Jack. 

“We’re about three quarters from home 
now,” said Tom. “We’re at the beginning 
o’ Roan; there’s the schoolhouse.” 

It was a queer little wooden building on the 
edge of a dense thicket of laurel. 

“The teacher isn’t much account,” said 
Jack. 

“ O, Jack !” cried Lavinia. 

“Jake Mudd .knows a heap,” said Tom. 

‘ ‘ He knows ’most as much as the preacher. 
Uncle Ben says that he does.” 

' ‘ Aunt Sabina says she never saw anybody 
as smart as Jake Mudd,” said Mattie. 

“ Who is Jake Mudd ? ” I asked. 

“ Why, Jake Mudd’s the teacher,” said little 
Marg. 

“ I guess you’ll like the house,” said Jack, as 
we rode around a stony corner. ‘ ‘ It used to be 
a hotel, you know ; at least it was built for a 
hotel.” 

“ It’s got spigots, but it hasn’t got any water 
in them,” said Lavinia. “ I think mother would 
rather have water than spigots.” 

“ Over yon is Uncle Ben’s house,” said little 
Marg. 

We passed through a wide gateway and rode 
up to a great frame building. A little lady in 


36 


Cis Martin. 


a faded calico dress came out on the porch and 
stood a moment shading her eyes with her 
hands, and then I was down from the horse, 
and, although both the gristmill woman and 
little Marg had been disappointed in my size, I 
was taller than mother. I took mother in my 
arms, my heart beating fast and Aunt Lavinia’s 
words ringing in my ears, “Your mother is 
starving herself, soul and body, in those miser- 
able mountains.’’ 


The Mountain Whites, 


37 


CHAPTER III. 

The Mountain Whites. 

I DID not sleep well that first night at my 
new home in the Tennessee mountains, 
although I was in a soft bed in a large, cool 
room. There were two streams in the yard, 
and the sound of rushing waters came to me in 
through the open windows. Usually I love to 
listen to rushing waters, but they sounded wild 
and terrible to me that night. All the startling 
tales told me by the woman from the gristmill 
repeated themselves with a vivid reality. I was 
terrified with mother and the children over the 
mysterious disappearance of little Margaret; 
my heart beat fiercely as I followed father along 
the river bank and found the pink bonnet string 
and the bit of calico dress where ' ‘ little Marg 
had torn herself in the bushes;” I wept with 
Jack over the inhuman treatment of the Negro 
lads on the lonely hillside, and a numbness set- 
tled upon me as I pictured those twenty-seven 
graves untouched by the rain. I tossed and 
turned and worried about the inhabitants of all 
my little world, about father and mother and 
the children, and about grandpapa and Aunt 
Lavinia too. 

Three years is a long time. I might have 


38 


Cis Martin. 


known that I would find the children changed, 
but I had been totally unprepared for the great- 
ness of the change. I had not expected to take 
my brothers and sisters for mountain children. 
Why should my brothers and sisters go bare- 
footed, and why should Jack wear a ragged hat 
and no coat ? Then I thought of mother, and 
felt ashamed of myself. The greatest change 
was in mother. She was pale and thin, 
and her eyes had dark circles under them. 
What mattered it if the healthy red-cheeked 
children were barefooted, and if Jack went in 
his shirt sleeves and wore a ragged hat, while 
mother dressed in that faded calico gown ? 
No, the fortune had not yet come to the fur- 
riners. 

Father was the least changed of anybody. 
True, his clothes were rough and he wore a 
broad straw hat like a farmer, but his cheerful 
face was the same face that I had known in 
New York, the same face that used to grow so 
grave and tender as he sat at his desk writing 
Semiramis. It had glowed with hope over 
Semiramisy and it had glowed with hope over 
the possibilities of the wealth to be found in 
the timber lands, and the hope had not gone 
out of it even after the three years. In fact, 
father was building a big dam on the mountain , 
and he was enthusiastic on the subject. When 
the big dam was built and the tram completed 


The Mountain Whites. 


39 


for hauling boards directly to the station, and 
the work was all going on regularly, it would 
be impossible not to make money. It is strange 
that the dark side of life should have stayed 
with me so long that first night when there was 
a bright side also to be considered. I took 
consolation in father’s dam on the mountain, 
and then I began to dwell complacently upon 
the big hotel. Suppose father had been obliged 
to bring his family to a little log house like the 
one in which lived the wonderful Uncle Ben 
and Aunt Sabina. The big hotel was truly 
very fine. The floors were of natural wood, and 
the mantels were things of beauty. The win- 
dows and door frames were made of walnut and 
oak, and the ceiling of the dining room was of 
native chestnut, highly polished. It would re- 
quire a large amount of money to furnish the 
house properly. The rooms were large and 
airy, and our furniture from New York seemed 
lost in it ; besides, the three years of service in 
the mountains had brought a shabby look to 
our chairs and sofas. From the shabby furni- 
ture my thoughts ran off again to the children. 
I could not blame mother, and yet it did seem 
an outrageous thing that the children should be 
allowed to roam at will around among the un- 
civilized people of the mountain, cultivating 
their modes of speech and drinking the milk that 
might contain the terrible sickness, and that 


40 


Cis Martin. 


they should go to school to a teacher whom they 
familiarly called Jake Mudd. Then my face 
flamed ; I could feel it hot on the pillow. I had 
been called “ Cis Martin.” It was undoubtedly 
a great mistake for a re'flned and cultivated 
family to move to such an uncivilized region. 
Grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia were right, only, 
somehow, I could not bear to think of father 
teaching a public school when he had been a 
professor of Latin and Greek in a college. Cer- 
tainly the Fates had not been kind to our fam- 
ily. Well, anyway, the children need never 
again go to school to Jake Mudd. I would 
teach them their lessons, and I would begin 
right away. I would make over some of my 
summer dresses for the girls, and perhaps I 
had money enough to buy them shoes and 
stockings, and I would make Tom some cotton 
waists. As for Jack — I gave a great sob when 
I thought of Jack ; I had expected so much from 
Jack. I had looked forward to rambling through 
the mountains with Jack, to telling him all my 
plans, to asking him to help me gather together 
anecdotes and funny little sayings of the people 
who eat snuff and were Aunt Lavinia’s abomina- 
tion. The boy who had intended to write a 
book like father, who had wept at the story of 
the Negroes, would have welcomed me gladly; 
but the Jack who was no longer a cry baby was 
happy on a mountain horse or among the rough 


The Mountain Whites. 


41 


men about the sawmill, and I felt certain that 
night that he did not care at all for me. I had 
only been in the Tennessee mountains the part 
of a day, but already I understood that mother 
was worrying herself sick over Jack. 

‘‘He is getting to be such a big boy,” she 
said to me on that very first evening, ‘ ‘ and he 
does not care much for books, which is natural, 
of course, and he enjoys life about the saw- 
mills, which, of course, is natural too. Father 
says that when the dam is finished and the mills 
are all in working order he will manage to send 
Jack away to school. It would be a shame if 
your father’s son were obliged to go without a 
college education.” 

Poor mother had tried to instill hope into her 
voice when she spoke of the big dam, but I 
knew that she had given up expectations of the* 
fortune and the joy of going back to New York 
rich and prosperous. 

I bit my lips and closed my eyes as I went 
over all this, and then again in fancy I beheld 
each room of the large hotel, and father smil- 
ing hopefully as he showed me over the new 
home. There’ was one piece of furniture that 
was quite in keeping with the hotel parlor; 
that was my grand piano, given to me by grand- 
papa on my fourteenth birthday, and shipped 
to Roan a week before my coming. When I 
fell asleep I was thinking confusedly of three 


42 


Cis Martin. 


things — the dam on the mountain, the hotel 
with spigots, and my grand piano. 

I went downstairs the next morning in a 
pleasant frame of mind. In the first place, the 
morning was so delicious that merely to live 
was pleasure enough. A mountain girl who 
did the rough work in the kitchen took curious 
looks at me through the kitchen door as we sat 
at the table in the beautiful dining room. This 
girl, whose name was Kit Farbish, seemed to 
be in a wondering and stupid frame of mind 
regarding the advent of a new furriner. Father 
had waited to take breakfast with me before 
going to the sawmill. He said he wanted to 
see me in the daylight. ‘ ‘ She is not as much 
changed as the rest of us,” he said to mother, 
and he laughed. Father did not know how 
much mother had changed, or he could not have 
laughed. I thought afterward he meant the 
clothes, for he laughed again and added : 
“Never mind! the dam is coming on finely. 
Wait till you see the dam. Cissy, before you go 
to forming an opinion of the Tennessee moun- 
tains.” 

The children had left the house before I was 
up, but this morning I blamed no one for any- 
thing; I, too, wanted to be off in the moun- 
tains. Jack had ridden to the big dam, of 
course, and the other children, mother said, 
were fishing down at the creek. But Tom came 


The Mountain Whites. 


43 


home again and lingered about with an idea 
that somebody ought to be polite to the big sis- 
ter. I pounced upon him as soon as I had eaten 
my breakfast. First, I would make friends with 
Tom, and then I would take him off into the 
mountains. I fell in love with his red cheeks 
and his bright eyes, and, somehow, I did not 
mind his bare feet at all, or even his mountain 
speech, for Tom talked about “ yon mountain ” 
and going “ plumb” to the creek store, and of 
letting Aunt Sabina’s' ‘plunder” fall into the river. 

While I was making friends with my brother 
Tom a small mountain boy came running up 
the yard. He called “ Howdy! ” when he saw 
us, and then explained that “ Mis’ Brown was 
worse.”. “She’s worse and the baby’s worse 
and Jim is worse, and they want Mis’ Martin to 
come down fast as she kin,” said the boy. 

Tom looked at me in surprise when I laughed 
involuntarily. It seemed so ridiculous in the 
mountain people sending for mother as if she 
were a doctor. “Mis’ Brown is very sick. 
Cissy,” he said. “ Mother always goes to see 
people when they’re real sick.” He got up and 
went into the house after mother. 

The boy, whose mission was ended, turned 
and ran away at full speed. Neither he nor 
Tom had any doubts of mother. 

When mother came out she was wrapped in 
a cloak that I remembered in the old days in 


44 


Cis Martin. 


New York. The morning- was warm, but she 
pulled the cloak about her as if she were chilly. 
Her face looked very little and thin. “ These 
poor people have no one but me to look after 
them, Cissy,” she said, in a tone of apology. 
‘ ‘ The doctor lives twelve miles away, and very 
few of them have any money. Your Aunt La- 
vinia would think it strange to see me playing 
doctor.” 

I thought of Aunt Lavinia in her well-fitting 
fashionable wrap, and felt a sudden anger against 
the whole world. My mother was goodness 
itself. Why should Aunt Lavinia have every- 
thing, and she nothing ? 

“May I go with you, mother?” I asked, 
timidly. 

She smiled and said yes, and we started out, 
Tom trotting beside us. 

I had heard about poor people in my life ; I 
had even on several occasions carried jelly and 
biscuits to poor families living near grandpapa’s, 
but I had never seen wretched poverty until I 
entered the mountain hut to which mother went 
in the capacity of physician and friend. There 
were two pigs lying before the door, and they 
grunted and got up at our approach, one of them 
walking away to the woods and the other going 
into the room in front of us. There was a huge 
fireplace in this hut, and a pile of bean hulls 
filled the middle of the fioor. The only light 


The Mountain Whites. 


45 


came in through the door, which was open all 
the year round, there being no windows. Over 
in a dark corner lay the sick woman, breathing 
heavily, and beside her on the bed was the baby. 
The baby was crying. The man was walking 
the floor with the little boy in his arms. He 
brought the child to the light and held it for 
mother to see. “ I guess you can’t do nothin’ 
for him, Mis’ Martin,” he said, hopelessly, “ I 
reckon he’s too far gone, but I hope to God you 
kin do some’n fer her.” He looked toward the 
bed as he spoke, and Tom caught my ^rm and 
whispered, “ I reckon Mis’ Brown has got the 
milk sickness.” 

My mother laid her small white hand upon 
the little boy’s forehead and examined his half- 
closed eyes. The man was right ; she could do 
the boy no good. ‘‘ He is not suffering,” she 
said, gently, and then went across to the woman 
in the shabby bed. 

Mrs. Brown was very ill, and she was worry- 
ing about the baby. 

You must get some of the neighbors to take 
the child,” said my mother, turning to the man. 
** Your wife will never get well while the baby 
is fretting.” 

None of ’em won’t have it, I reckon,” said 
the man. “ It can’t half drink the bottle.” 

^‘Surely the grandmother will take it, said 
my mother. 


46 


Cis Martin. 


“ No, mom, she won’t,” said the man, ‘‘and 
what’s more, I ain’t gunno ask her.” 

“Won’t you ask Aunt Sally Mudd ? ” in- 
quired my mother, pleadingly. 

“ No, mom,” said Sam Brown, shaking his 
head in a positive manner. “I’m sorry not to 
gratify you, but she’d worry worse with it to 
Aunt Sally Mudd’s than with it frettin’ in the bed 
beside her. No, mom, I ain’t gunno ask Aunt 
Sally Mudd to take care of no kid o’ mine.” 

‘ ‘ W ould you let me take it ? ” asked my mother. 
Then she turned around to me, her face flushed, 
her eyes brilliant. ‘ ‘ Cecelia,” she said, timidly, 
“ would you mind if I took the baby home? It 
must be taken away from the mother. Would 
you mind very much? ” 

I could not bear to have mother, as it were, 
asking my permission. “ Why should I mind, 
mother ? ” I asked in turn. “ I think it is 
awfully good of you.” 

“ I will carry the baby,” said Tom, manfully. 

I think these mountain people had succeeded 
in making a very good doctor out of my mother. 
Sam Brown said, “ No, mom, I ain’t no objec- 
tions to raise to your takin’ the kid;” and he 
watched my mother with a sort of fascination 
as she bundled the baby up for its journey, and 
listened with respectful attention when she told 
him how and when to give the medicine to his 
wife. 


The Mountain Whites. 47 

But Tom was so little that I insisted upon 
carrying the baby home. 

“ It would be real pretty,” said Tom, “if it 
would laugh instead of cry. I reckon little Marg 
and them folks will make it laugh.” 

It was the little mountain baby that made me 
great friends with my smaller sisters, for I said 
to mother on the way home that I would take 
entire charge of Sam Brown’s kid, and I did it. 
I was very glad, however, to graciously allow 
Lavinia and Mattie and even little Marg to sit in 
a low rocking-chair and nurse this valuable 
stranger, carefully holding its bottle for it the 
while. Among mother’s keepsakes was a num- 
ber of baby dresses, and she brought them 
out and gave them to us, saying that it wasn’t 
right to put away useful articles. The baby was 
a different-looking little thing after it was prop- 
erly washed and dressed and had its milk regu- 
larly, and in a week or so it actually began to 
grow fat. We all became very much attached 
to this baby, and the children always wanted to 
know whose dress it wore. It must have been 
hard on mother to remember the happy days in 
New York that must have been connected with 
those baby dresses, but she smiled bravely upon 
the questioner as she answered. When Sam 
Brown’s kid wore a long frock, once the property 
of Lavinia, my sister Lavinia insisted upon hold- 
ing it oftenest, and the same way with Mattie. 


48 


Cis Martin. 


One day I came in and found Tom patiently 
rocking the baby back and forth as he sat in the 
little rocking-chair. “ It’s got on my dress,” he 
said, “ and mother made it herself.” 

The mountain people came to our house to 
admire the baby in its new old clothes. None 
of them had ever seen such a change in a baby. 
They declared that “Mis’ Martin ” was a better 
doctor than a man, and they asked her all sorts 
of questions about curing diseases. 

Sometimes at night I had a time getting the 
baby to sleep. But I had insisted that mother 
should not have any of the trouble, and I would 
not even let her take a little turn at rocking the 
cradle that was also a keepsake. 

‘ ^ I feel so sorry for the poor, ignorant moun- 
tain people,” mother said one night when I was 
rocking the cradle. “ I am always ready to go 
when they call me, though sometimes I can do 
little enough. It makes me glad to think that 
now and then I am the means of helping a poor 
mother back to health. There is so much to be 
done in these mountains. I wonder why good 
people like missionaries must always go off to 
foreign lands instead of coming to places like 
this.” Then she went on, talking rapidly and 
looking away from me: “ I know, Cecelia, that 
you wonder why I do not take better care of the 
children, and your Aunt Lavinia and your grand- 
papa would blame me severely if they knew 


The Mountain Whites. 


49 


the existing state of affairs ; but it seems to me 
that if I coop them up in the house, if I do not 
let them drink in the fresh air and run bare- 
footed and all that, that some terrible disease 
might come to them. We are very, very poor, 
Cecelia, and I dare not be proud in these moun- 
tains.” Her whole face quivered as she looked 
at me. My dear little mother had seen so much 
of misery, had helped so much at the bedside of 
the sick and dying, that she was in a state of 
nervous dread lest some dire calamity should be- 
fall her own red-cheeked, happy children. 

“ Only,” she faltered, “ I do wish that Jack 
could be sent to school.” 

There were two things that brought the moun- 
tain people to our house during my first month 
at home — the refreshing sight of Mis’ Brown’s 
metamorphosed baby and the sound of the big 
fiddle, for that is what they called the grand 
piano that grandpapa had given to me on my 
fourteenth birthday. I played to them on the big 
fiddle until they declared I was the finest gal 
on Roan Mountain and had a '‘mighty good 
head.” 

One day the woman from the gristmill called 
me aside and whispered, “ Yerpawis jestgunno 
do anything in this world you ask him. The 
men want you to ask him to give a shuckin’ so 
they all can set around that thar big table Jack 
calls the ’stension table.” 

4 


so 


Cis Martin. 


“But it’s only July,” I cried. “The corn 
doesn’t get ripe until fall.” 

“ Well, fall’s cornin’ straight along,” said Mrs. 
Slade. “You promise you’ll ask yer paw, please 
mom. You play so pretty on the big fiddle, 
Cis,” she added, coaxingly. 

Thereupon I promised that I would ask father. 

‘ ‘ And after the shuckin ’ is over mebbe you 
might play on the big fiddle and let the young 
people jump around in the dinin’ room like lit- 
tle Marg and them folks does, ” said Mrs. Slade, 
smiling hard, and I smiled back, saying that 
maybe I might. The truth is, I rather liked 
Mrs. Slade, or Mis’ Slade, as I got into the way 
of calling her. I had discovered long before 
that it was no use getting excited over being 
called “Cis” and “Cis Martin.” I had re- 
signed myself to this indignity as mother had 
resigned herself to numerous things. 

There was one thing, however, that I could not 
and would not resign myself to — the fact that 
Jack and I were not good friends. I knew the 
mountain people around better than I knew my 
own brother. He was off to the sawmill early 
in the morning and did not come home until 
evening, and then he was down fishing in the 
little river until bedtime, or over visiting Uncle 
Ben and Aunt Sabina. 

Uncle Ben and Aunt Sabina both came to see 
the baby. Uncle Ben was tall and slim, with a 


The Mountain Whites. 


51 


kind white face, and Aunt Sabina was the 
largest woman on Roan Mountain. “I’m al- 
ways fat, but I’m generally porely,” said Aunt 
Sabina; “however, yer maw has done me a 
powerful lot o’ good.” These good people went 
into rhapsodies over the metamorphosed baby. 
“ Laws! ” said Uncle Ben, “and the hoj he s 
dead.” 

Mrs. Brown recovered, and one afternoon Sam 
Brown came for the baby. We were sorry to give 
the little thing up, and Lavinia said that she just 
wouldn’t do it ; she’d keep it all the time. The 
man seemed sullen and low-spirited. 

“ She will have it,” he said. “ I know you’d 
take better keer of it, and it’d be better off, but 
she will have it. I eouldn’t do nothin’ but come 
fer’t when she said she would have it.” 

“ Of course the poor mother wants her baby,” 
said mother, and Lavinia, who had been pout- 
ing, looked ashamed. “ Tell her to take good 
care of it, to wash it, and keep it clean. 

The people all around on Roan Mountain were 
excited when they heard that Sam Brown had 
really taken the baby back to its home. 

“Well! ” cried the woman at the gristmill, 
“I declare to goodness! What’s the use o’ 
preachin’ in the schoolhouse nor anything after 
that? By all that’s right and fair in this mor- 
tal world that baby should a ben give to the 
furriners.” 


52 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Jack. 

W HEN the hig dam was finished I went 
up to see it on the back of the bony 
bay horse belonging to Uncle Ben and 
Aunt Sabina, but always being borrowed by Tom 
and my sisters. As on the ride from the station, 
Tom was perched before me to manage the 
reins, but this time it was little Marg who sat 
behind me. Lavinia and Mattie ran along be- 
side us. It was a very damp morning, but we 
were all in high spirits. Now and then, as we 
ascended the mountain road, we either passed 
or were overtaken by mountaineers, men plod- 
ding steadily ahead, women lugging their babies 
and children. Several pet pigs were keeping 
close to the heels of their owners. 

“ Where are all the people going? ” I asked. 
Little Marg burst out laughing. ‘ ‘ Where are 
we going. Cissy? ” she inquired. 

“ O,” said I, “ are they going to see the big 
dam? ” I was glad to have such a number of 
people interested in father’s work. 

'' They think it is going to rain,” said Lavinia. 
If it rains, they say the big dam will burst, 
and they want to see it.” 

“ O! ” I cried, in dismay. 


Jack. 


53 


But the big dam won’t burst,” said Tom. 

“ No, indeedie,” said little Marg. 

‘‘ Nobody ever saw such a big dam, I reckon,” 
said my sister Matilda, with pride in her voice. 
“ I wish Uncle Ben and Aunt Sabina had come 
along with us.” 

“ Aunt Sabina would break old Bay’s back,” 
said Tom, “and she couldn’t walk.” 

“She could go up on a wagon,” said little 
Marg. 

We arrived at our destination in due time, and 
father came forward to meet us and helped me 
off the bay horse, while Tom and little Marg 
jumped to the ground without any trouble. 

“ Well, Cissy,” said father, “ have you come 
up from Roan to see the eighth wonder of the 
world? ” 

“Laws, no!” cried little Marg; “she has 
come to see the big dam.” 

Truly, the big dam was a wonderful thing to 
be found there in the wilderness. P'ather ex- 
plained to me how the logs had been laid first 
in one direction and then in the other and filled 
up between with earth and stones. This solidly 
constructed wall was five hundred feet long, and 
the sheet of water above resembled a small lake. 
The wind sighed through the quivering branches 
of the tall forest trees all around the sheet of 
water, and down the mountain rushed and 
tumbled the noisy little river, to be captured 


54 


Cis Martin. 


and turned into the beautiful lake. About a 
quarter of a mile below the big dam was the 
new sawmill. Father told me about how the 
water that rushed through the elevated wooden 
race fell with force upon the wheel that worked 
the sawmill, and all about how lumber was sea- 
soned in stacks on the mountain, and how the 
machinery ripped off the bark, and ever so many 
other things that set me marveling over the in- 
genuity of man. 

“ There is no finer timber in the whole United 
States than grows right here in the Tennessee 
mountains,” father said to me. I have sawed 
poplars that were seven feet across and cherries 
that were five. It is impossible for the timber 
business not to prove a success. You see, I have 
had so many drawbacks,” he continued, as if 
excusing himself. ‘‘It takes money to make 
money, and Kirk is not as venturesome as I 
would wish.” Kirk was the partner with capi- 
tal whom father had been fortunate enough to 
find three years before. “ ‘ Nothing venture 
nothing have ; ’ there is something in that doc- 
trine.” 

My sisters were engaged in throwing sticks 
into the water, but Tom was listening to father. 
“ Is the big dam a venture, father?” he asked, 
gravely. 

“No, my boy,” father answered; “the big 
dam is no longer a venture.” He patted Tom 


Jack. 


55 


upon the head and laughed. ‘‘I think,” he 
added, “ that even these people will pronounce 
the big dam a success after we have had a good 
rain . ” The mountaineers were gathering about. 
They seemed pleased that the weather was grow- 
ing more and more threatening. 

‘‘ There is much to be improved upon in the 
Tennessee mountains, eh. Cissy?” father con- 
tinued. ‘‘We are going to come out all right 
in the end. I am trying my best to prevail upon 
Kirk to come down. I want to explain certain 
matters to him that cannot well be explained in 
writing. I am pushing the work all I can. You 
must make the children take you around to the 
smaller mills. There are three running. Some 
day I hope to see the mountains alive with them. 
Do you see those trees across on the next rise? 
There’s a fortune in the red oaks alone. I want 
to get Kirk to purchase the timber-right of the 
whole tract. There is no use in limiting the 
business.” Then father said, suddenly, “There’s 
Jack. Why didn’t he come up with you? He 
might have given you the better horse, I think.” 

Jack was down at the sawmill. The water 
from the race was rushing over the millwheel, 
and the sawing for the day had begun. Jack 
was standing dangerously close to the great 
moving log, at least so it seemed to me. He 
had thrown away his hat. Notwithstanding 
that he was in his shirt sleeves and wore cor- 


56 


Cis Martin. 


duroy trousers, there was something undeniably 
fine-looking about Jack. 

‘‘ I suppose your mother has told you that as 
soon as matters are a little more settled Jack is 
to be sent away to school,” father said. 

“ Yes,” I said, softly; ‘‘ mother told me.” 

‘ ‘ Running wild a few years in the mountains 
doesn’t hurt a boy,” father went on. “Jack is 
strong and healthy, and that counts for a great 
deal. I am afraid that your mother worries un- 
necessarily about Jack. It has never been my 
intention to allow any of my children to be 
brought up without education.” 

Then the clouds opened above us, and the rain 
came pouring down. Father and I sought shelter 
in a rude tent belonging to some of the sawmill 
men, and the mountain people scurried to the 
shelter of the tall trees at a safe distance from 
the big dam, watching eagerly for the calamity 
that had been prophesied among them. There 
were four other eager watchers — my three sisters 
and Tom. It was a joy to see the triumph in 
little Marg’s eyes, even at the beginning of the 
rain. 

But father’s mind was not upon the big dam 
at that moment. “ Cissy,” he said, “do you 
notice any great change in your mother? Do 
you think she is not looking well? ” 

I was wrong in thinking that father had not 
seen the change in mother. I put my hands on 


Jack. 


57 


his arm and caught it close. '‘O, father,” I 
whispered, “there isn’t anything the matter 
with mother? She hasn’t the consumption or 
anything, father? ” 

“No, no, Cissy, ” father said, reassuringly. His 
face had been grave enough, but it lighted up. 
“ We will get her out of the mountains as soon 
as possible. I think, dear, that your mother is 
homesick for the New York town. That is what 
is the matter with her ; that and the care of the 
house and the care of the neighbors. It seems 
strange that these mountain people should be so 
sickly. It must be owing to the food and the 
snuff. Your mother was never strong, and she 
tires herself waiting upon the sick. I am think- 
ing of packing you all off for a winter in the 
North, mother and every one of you. How 
would that be? ” 

“ I wouldn’t go,” I said. 

“You wouldn’t go?” cried father, in aston- 
ishment. 

“ No,” I repeated; “ I wouldn’t go. I would 
stay with you until you could go too.” 

A sort of wistful look came into my father’s 
eyes, though he only laughed softly and patted 
my shoulder, saying that I was the right kind 
of a daughter and that he was very glad I had not 
given up the idea of coming down to Tennessee. 

“I want to teach the children as soon as school 
time begins,” I said, unconsciously wishing to 


58 


Cis Martin. 


rise even higher in father’s estimation. ‘‘ Of 
course I know they won’t want to come to 
school to me, but I’m sure it will be better for 
them in the end.” 

“Decidedly better for them,” said father, 
“though they haven’t done so badly with Jake 
Mudd. Young Mudd is a bright fellow, and he 
is determined to have a college education. He 
has been a faithful teacher at the little moun- 
tain school. Have you heard Lavinia spelling? 
Don’t you think Mattie reads wonderfully well 
for her age ? As for little Marg, she only went 
to school a month, and she was under age, but 
she can make letters and figures all over her 
slate. But it will be better, of course, for the 
children to go to school to you. I almost wish 
you could undertake Jack.” 

“ Can’t I undertake Jack, father? ” I asked. 

“ Jack is rather a big boy,” said father, laugh- 
ing, “and he isn’t inclined to be studious at this 
period of his life. He doesn’t even think much 
of Jake Mudd as a teacher. I don’t believe a 
girl could do anything with Jack. Well, well, 
careless life for a little longer I am sure will not 
prove injurious to Jack. When he is sent to a 
good school he will buckle down and go straight 
ahead. You mustn’t get into your mother’s way 
of worrying over Jack.” 

Then we looked out at the big dam and the 
people until the rain was over, and father laughed 


Jack. 


59 


with little Marg at the nonfulfillment of the 
prophecy. But all the time I was thinking of 
Jack. 

Mother was of the opinion that Jack ought to 
go to school to me. 

“ In some things he is more backward than 
Lavinia,” she said. “Indeed, I doubt if he reads 
as well as Mattie. He will be so ashamed when 
he gets with boys of his own age who have had 
advantages. I am glad and thankful that he is 
strong and healthy, but he ought to be paying 
some attention to his studies; he is thirteen 
years old.” 

One day I went to sleep on the couch in the 
hall, and when I awoke I heard mother and 
Jack talking. They were talking about me, and 
the sitting-room door was wide open ; I could 
not help hearing what was said. 

‘ ‘ I know she’s graduated up at that school in 
New York, and it’s all right to have her teach 
Lavinia and the rest of them ; but I’m not going 
to let her lord it over me ; no, mother. I’m not,” 
said Jack, in a very decided voice. 

“ Lord it over you. Jack! ” repeated mother. 
“ I’m ashamed to hear you speak that way about 
your sister. Cecelia wants to be of use to us all. 
Are you going to allow Lavinia and Mattie to 
get ahead of you in their studies? ” 

Jack laughed shortly. “ I don’t care if they 
do, ” he said. 


60 


Cis Martin. 


Yes, you do care,” continued mother ; and 
it’s right and proper that you should. You are 
thirteen years old, and you are Doctor Martin’s 
son. You don’t want the boys to laugh at you 
and call you dull Jack Martin when father sends 
you to college? ” 

“ I dare them to call me dull Jack Martin,” 
cried my brother. “ I’ll let them see that I 
haven’t lived in the Tennessee mountains for 
nothing; I’ll show them quick as lightning that 
I know how to fight.” 

^‘O, Jack!” protested mother. Then she 
went on persuasively. ‘ ‘ All I ask of you is that 
you will go to school to Cissy a few hours every 
day. Things will be so easy to you when you 
have your sister to explain them to you. She 
will take such an interest in you. I do not un- 
derstand the way you are acting toward Cissy. 
Before we came down here you were together 
all the time. Have you forgotten? ” 

There was silence in the room for a minute, 
then Jack broke out: “No, mother, I haven’t 
forgotten, but things are different now. Who 
do you think she took us for when we met her 
down at the station? She took us for Mis’ 
Slade’s girls and boys. Mis’ Slade told me so ; 
and she told it all round the mountains. Why, 
mother, you just ought to have seen her face 
when she stepped off the car after Mis’ Slade 
had told her who we were ; it was just as red as 


Jack. 


61 


it could be. I didn’t think she was going to kiss 
me. I wish she hadn’t.” 

“ O, Jack!” expostulated mother. 

‘ ‘ When I see her walking along the road be- 
side you, mother,” Jack went on, in a fury, “ all 
dressed up in her fine clothes, and you — and 
you — ” 

“Jack,” interrupted mother, “I have lived 
in the Tennessee mountains for three years. 
When I first came I wore fine clothes too. 
You have forgotten. You don’t remember 
your own fine clothes when you talk about 
Cissy’s. All the people were talking about 
your pretty little blue suit with the brass but- 
tons. I hope I shall never see your sister shab- 
by. You do not want her to go hunt up a 
shabby frock to walk beside her mother? That 
might please you. Jack, but it would not please 
her mother.” 

“I don’t know what I want,” said Jack, sulk- 
ily; “ but it does make me mad when I see you 
and her out walking; and it makes me mad — 
yes, it does, mother — when she goes into the 
schoolhouse on Sunday with ribbons in her hair 
and ribbons around her waist. Did you see 
Madge Hustler last Sunday? She had on a 
ribbon too. All these poor mountain girls will 
be trying to dress as fine as Cissy, and they 
ought to wear plain cotton dresses. They’ll 
want everything that Cissy has, and they’ll be 


62 


Cis Martin. 


just as miserable as they can be because they 
can’t have them. I know you’re mad with me, 
mother, but I can’t help it. Cissy is going to 
teach Lavinia and the others to put on airs and 
to want to dress fine, and father cannot afford 
it any more than these mountain people ; and 
after a while she’s going to begin begging father 
to go back where we came from, and he can’t 
do it; he can’t afford it. I just wish she’d 
stayed at grandpapa’s and let us alone.” 

Jack,” said mother, in a low voice, “ I am 
going to tell you something. Your grandpapa 
and Aunt Lavinia both implored your father 
and me to allow Cecelia to remain with them, 
and after a while I consented, and then your fa- 
ther consented because I urged him to do so. 
Cecelia had everything that a girl could wish in 
your grandpapa’s home ; she had pleasant asso- 
ciates of her own age ; she was the one petted 
child in the house. She gave it all up and came 
down here to us.” 

But Jack was unaffected. She didn’t know 
how it was,” he said, ungraciously. “ She took 
us for Mis’ Slade’s girls and boys. Imagine 
taking little Marg for Mis’ Slade’s child!” 
Then my inconsistent brother went on : 
“She’ll borrow Uncle Ben’s horse quick 
enough, but she looks down on both Uncle 
Ben and Aunt Sabina, and they’re nice people. 
They’re well off too. Uncle Ben owns another 


Jack. 


63 


farm around the Roan. They’re just as kind 
and good people as live.” 

“Certainly they are good people,” said 
mother. 

‘ ‘ She just thinks they’re people to borrow 
horses from,” said Jack, which was exceedingly 
unfair, considering that we never borrowed any 
horse but old Bay. “ And you look up to her, 
mother, as if she were somebody grand, and 
she isn’t half as grand as you. You ask her 
advice, and you go by her, mother.” Poor Jack 
spoke hoarsely. 

“ How can I help but look up to her. Jack?” 
questioned mother, gently. ‘ ‘ She is my oldest 
daughter. She is sixteen, almost a young lady. 
She is so talented and so pretty and so fond of 
us all. Yes, Jack, I do look up to her, and I 
always shall. It is a pleasure for me to ask her 
advice, and I am proud and happy that I can 
accept her advice. She would teach you so 
nicely. Jack. She could start you in Latin. 
You never liked Jake Mudd, though he is a 
very good young man and a good teacher. 
You will go to school to Cissy, won’t you. 
Jack?” 

“ I would go to school to you, mother, if you 
wanted me to,” said Jack, humbly, “but I can- 
not go to school to anybody else in these moun- 
tains, not even to Jake Mudd. Father says that 
some of the greatest scholars didn’t know any- 


64 


Cis Martin. 


thing when they were boys, and he says it doesn’t 
hurt a fellow to run wild for a time.” 

Jack grabbed up his tattered straw hat, 
which was lying on the floor in the range of my 
vision, and jumped out the sitting-room window. 
I was very thankful that he did not come out 
into the hall. I rose from the couch and 
tiptoed away. I was sorry for mother and 
Jack, and I think I was sorry for myself 
too. 

The other children were not pleased, either, 
at the idea of going to school to me. 

“ Not go to school to Jake Mudd any more !” 
cried Lavinia. ‘ ‘ Well ! ” 

“ Go to school to Cissy!” exclaimed Mattie. 
“Where?” 

“Go to school here in the hotel! Laws!” 
cried little Marg. 

Tom said nothing, but on the morning that 
school opened in the hotel and I went to the 
door to ring the bell that mother had given me, 
so as to make it seem like school indeed, I saw 
a small boy with a slate under his arm running 
across the lot toward the road, and I knew it 
was my brother Tom on his way to school to 
Jake Mudd. 

My three sisters responded to the call of the 
bell. 

Little Marg gazed about the great empty 
schoolroom. “ I’d like to know who in the 


Jack. 65 

world I’m goin’ to trap,” she said, contemptu- 
ously. 

“ I wish we had benches,” sighed my sister 
Lavinia. 

“I wish,” said Mattie, “that Liz Hawkins 
and Mamie Watts could come to this school.” 

I possessed two advantages, however, over Jake 
Mudd — I was a fluent story-teller and I owned 
a grand piano. After I had told two or three 
stories, and had promised to teach even little 
Marg the art of playing on the grand piano, I 
did not have very much trouble with my sisters. 
I was sorry that father should And it necessary 
to whip Tom before he could be made to stay 
away from Jake Mudd’s school and attend the 
school in the hotel. 

“ I wish Jack could be prevailed upon to go 
to school to Cissy,” mother said to father. 

“ O, Jack is ’most too large for a girl to man- 
age,” father answered easily. ‘ ‘ He’ll tame down 
and go to school all right by and by. It’s no use 
to force him to go to school to Cissy if he’s un- 
willing, “ for he would only torment her, and I 
think she has enough to do teaching the younger 
children.” 

But I had not yet tried to persuade Jack to 
let me teach him, and I was not going to give 
him up until I did try. I had something in my 
mind which I was confldent would surprise and 
in all probability conquer Jack. 

5 


66 


Cis Martin. 


I went over to the creek store one day on the 
back of the bay horse borrowed from Uncle 
Ben. I had by this time learned to ride with- 
out Tom perched in front of me to manage the 
reins. Uncle Ben brought old Bay over for me, 
and even got the saddle and put it on. I did 
not see how Jack could imagine that I looked 
down upon such kind people as Uncle Ben and 
Aunt Sabina. 

* ‘ When I get back from the creek store I 
will pay Aunt Sabina a visit,” I said to Uncle 
Ben. “ I’ll bring Bay over to your lot. Thank 
you very much for lending him to me.” 

You’re welcome, Cis,” said Uncle Ben. 
“ Don’t stumble on the big hill.” 

I didn’t tell anybody what I bought at the 
creek store, though Lavinia and Mattie were 
very curious. 

“I bet it’s a new dress,” said Lavinia, en- 
viously. 

But Mattie laughed. “ Cissy wouldn’t buy a 
new dress at the creek store,” she said. 

My little sisters were beginning to show a 
great fondness for new dresses. I had made 
over two of my lawn dresses for Mattie and 
Margaret; one with pink dots and one with 
pink stripes, and I had sent to New York city 
and bought a blue lawn dress for Lavinia. 
When my sisters wore these dresses, all of 
which were considered new, for the first time, I 


Jack. 


67 


presented each of them with a ribbon for their 
hair. Lavinia was very pretty in her blue lawn 
dress, even though her Sunday shoes were 
shabby. She had little short curls around her 
face, and her cheeks were very red. I began 
again to make plans for Lavinia and for Mattie 
too ; only it seemed to me that the first plans 
ought to be for mother. Father’s idea of send- 
ing mother and the children all back to grand- 
papa’s on a visit was very delightful, but I did 
not think mother would go even if the money 
were forthcoming. It was, on the whole, rather 
difficult to make plans for mother. 

Notwithstanding Mattie’s opinion on the sub- 
ject, I had bought a dress at the creek store. I 
made this dress at nights after the children were 
in bed. It took me a week to make it, and I 
had some trouble about the fit. 

I got up very early one morning and put on 
my new dress. Usually I wore my hair tied 
with a brown ribbon, but after I had put on my 
new dress I took a net out of the bureau drawer 
and made use of it instead. Then I opened the 
door softly and tipped down the stairs. I had 
seen from the window Jack’s horse in the lot. 

Jack’s horse was very tame. It came right to 
me when I called, and I saw that it already had 
on the bridle and saddle. I fastened the bridle 
to an upright piece of the fence and then hid 
behind a chestnut tree. 


68 


Cis Martin. 


Jack’s horse looked as if he did not understand 
things when his master called his name from the 
door of the hotel. 

‘ ‘ Got yourself hooked, old boy? ” I heard Jack 
say a minute later. Then I stepped out from 
behind the chestnut tree. 

“ Jack,” I said, “ what do you think of my 
new dress? ” 

Jack was so surprised at my sudden appear- 
ance that he hadn’t a word to say. He stood 
there with the horse bridle in his hand. Then 
a red glow overspread his face. 

“ What do you think of my new dress? ” I 
repeated. 

It’s very pretty,” said Jack. 

I had failed to make the impression I had 
wished to make upon Jack. I had looked for a 
sudden lighting up of his whole face. I had 
thought of him crying out in a delighted voice, 

‘ ‘ Why, Cissy ! ” and then and there I had fully 
intended to conquer him. 

“ And what do you think of my hair. Jack? ” 
I asked. 

Jack glanced nervously at my hair. ** I think 
it’s very pretty, ” he said again. Was he pre- 
paring to jump upon his horse and gallop away? 
Must I go back to the house with the miserable 
feeling upon me that all my labor had been 
vain? 

‘"Jack,” I cried, impulsively, “I came out 


Jack. 


69 


here to talk to you. I have hardly seen any- 
thing of you since I came to the Tennessee 
mountains, and we used to be together all the 
time up home. Jack,” I went on, with a sudden 
rush of color, “ I overheard you talking to 
mother that day in the sitting room — I couldn ’t 
help overhearing — and I know what you think of 
me. You are mistaken ; indeed, indeed you are. 
I went over to the creek store and bought this 
dress and I made it at night, and it’s cotton. 
You see that it’s cotton. Jack, like the mountain 
girls wear. I am going to wear it to church to 
please you.” 

Jack had paled a little when I said that I had 
overheard him talking to mother. His face was 
a study as he stood there, shuffling his feet in 
the leaves. ' Then he raised his eyes and took a 
good, long look at me. 

I gazed back at him, half defiantly, half plead- 
ingly. 

‘ ‘ It doesn’t look like it came from the creek 
store,” he said. “It doesn’t look like it was 
cotton.” 

“ But it is,” I said, “ and I’m willing to go to 
church in it because you want me to, and I’ll 
wear it every time I take a walk with mother. 
And I haven’t a single'piece of ribbon anywhere. 
See, I haven’t any ribbon on my hair. I have 
put on this horrid net, and I will wear it to 
church, too, if you wish. ” 


70 


Cis Martin. 


To all this my brother had not a word to say. 

“Jack,” I asked, approaching nearer to him, 
“ won’t you come to school to me? ” 

This question Jack answered. “ I am going 
to college, Cissy, ” he said. Then he touched 
his foot to the stirrup, sprang into the saddle, 
and went galloping off. 

I returned to the house and sat down upon 
the front porch. Before me rushed and rumbled 
the stream, and all about were the mountains. 
But I was not interested in any of the beauties 
of nature. I had cherished a dream that had 
come to naught. After a while Lavinia and 
Mattie came out on the porch and surveyed me 
curiously. 

“ Cissy has on a new dress,” said Mattie to 
Lavinia, ‘ ‘ and she’s fixed her hair a lovely new 
way.” 

“It is a beautiful dress,” said Lavinia, in a 
tone of envy. 

Neither of them dreamed that my new dress 
had been purchased at the creek store. 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 


71 


CHAPTER V. 

A Stroll on the Mountain* 

^TOTWITHSTANDING that the big dam 
I ^ was regarded as a success by all the peo- 
V, pie who had anything to do with it, as 
well as by a great many others, I understood 
more and more plainly every day that the 
finances of our family were very low, and so I 
determined to try to make some money. It 
seemed to me that it was time I should begin 
my career as a writer for magazines and weekly 
papers. At first, of course, I would meet with 
numerous trials and disappointments, but I had 
had a good education and I would not attempt 
anything very difficult, not get out of my depth, 
as Aunt Lavinia had often advised, and even if 
I only succeeded in placing an article every now 
and then with a reliable publisher, it would be a 
help. A little money would go a long way to- 
ward making things comfortable in the Tennes- 
see mountains. I did not know the prices that 
magazines and weekly papers pay for manu- 
scripts, but I knew that a person must write on 
only one side of the paper and not roll the 
manuscript, and I was of the opinion that a 
well-told descriptive article of life in the Ten- 
nessee mountains would meet with ready sale. 


72 


Cis Martin. 


I was pleased with the idea of beginning my 
career with such an article. 

It was on the fourth Saturday after opening 
school for the children in the hotel that I made 
up my mind to walk around among the moun- 
tains and gather material for my article. Tom 
and my sisters had gone off to the river Doe on 
a fishing expedition. Mother wanted me to 
wait until they returned before starting out, but 
I told her that my walk was to be an all-day’s 
tramp, and that I did not wish to tire any of the 
children on their holiday. 

Mother said that the mountains were perfectly 
safe, but advised me not to overdo the thing. 
She hadn’t any idea that I was going forth to 
gather material of a salable character ; indeed, 
I fully intended not to tell her anything about 
it until the money for my article was in my 
hand. I did not know that some periodicals do 
not pay on acceptance. It would have been im- 
possible for me to have kept the knowledge of 
a notice of acceptance from mother. 

“ I am going calling,” I said, “and perhaps 
I will come across some of father’s smaller saw- 
mills. I want to see a great deal of life in the 
Tennessee mountains to-day.” 

I should like to be able to describe my feelings 
on that morning I started out on my hunting 
expedition. In my ears was the rush of waters ; 
overhead was a perfect sky ; the road lay before 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 73 

me damp and shady in the hollows, dry and 
shady on the hills ; every now and then I came 
across a “deadening.’’ There is something 
strangely desolate looking about a deadening. 
The trees, that have been killed by hacking 
about the lower parts of the trunks stand tall 
and naked, allowing the sunshine to pour upon 
the lot. In time the trees will fall, but even 
while standing they interfere very little with 
the cultivation of the soil. At the end of each 
“deadening” was the mountaineer’s little 
wooden house, a familiar object, with its dearth 
of windows and its open door. The prosperity 
of the United States to be found in the Tennes- 
see mountains was all confined in the tremen- 
dous forest trees, the maples and the cherries 
and the wonderful oaks. 

I did not meet many people as I tramped 
along. A little red-cheeked boy said ‘ ‘ Howdy ! ” 
to me, and I said ‘ ‘ Howdy ! ” back, and the driver 
of an ox team stared at me as if I were a being 
from another world before he, too, said “ How- 
dy! ” This man was surprised when I said 
“ Howdy !” back, and he made me suddenly 
remember that I was, of course, regarded as a 
foreigner, and that foreigners did not say 
“ Howdy! ” but “ Good morning! ” or “ Good 
evening! ” according to the situation of the sun. 
The ox team was laboring along with a load of 
boards, making its way, beyond a doubt, from 


74 


Cis Martin. 


one of father’s little sawmills. So I kept to the 
road, where the marks of the wheels were visible, 
climbing- one steep hill after another, stepping 
on the stones in crossing the streams, tilting the 
boards of the curious bridges, drinking in the 
nature about me with a great gladness. 

When at last I reached the little sawmill on 
the mountain the men informed me that I was 
nearly four miles from home, and they grinned 
around among themselves, evidently unable to 
understand why a girl should walk four miles to 
see a little sawmill on the mountain. But I did 
not know how tired I was until I sat down to 
rest upon one of the logs. 

It was delightful up there at the little saw- 
mill. As I sat there resting and watching the 
men I thought of various other kinds of work, 
and came to the conclusion that if I were a la- 
boring man, I would be satisfied to spend my 
life in sawing boards. I was out this morning 
hunting valuable material for a salable article. 
“Life in the Tennessee Mountains” had al- 
ready inscribed itself on my brain as a suitable 
title. The words must be -written with capitals 
and underlined, and beneath would be the name 
“ Cecelia Martin.” I never did believe in pseu- 
donyms. But if I succeeded in my undertaking, 
and I felt almost certain of success, I would 
have to continue writing articles, and a good 
article about the timber and father’s sawmills 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 75 

would assuredly find favor with the reading 
public. Then I said to myself that the saw- 
mill article should be my first ; the other could 
wait. I would drink in with my eyes and my 
ears all that was going on about me, and in the 
evening I would ply father with questions. It 
would be a strange and delightful thing if both 
father and I were to make money out of the 
timber in the Tennessee mountains. I felt as 
if I would like to see Aunt Lavinia’s face as she 
read my article on father’s sawmills. But a 
frown grew on my forehead as I set to thinking 
of all the things I must know thoroughly in or- 
der that my article, like the big dam, would 
turn out a success. I would have to explain 
how the wooden race, supported on its bridge- 
work, was elevated one hundred and fifty feet 
above the mill wheel, and how the water falling 
this one hundred and fifty feet sets and keeps 
the wheel in motion. I would have to tell at 
length about the perpendicular box, called the 
penstock, and the usual number of saws, and 
how the bark was ripped off the logs, and about 
the inspector coming down from Boston or New 
York to classify the lumber after it had been 
stacked for its three months’ seasoning. 

Thinking about timber brought up many per- 
plexing questions. I blushed to think how 
much of my article would really be father’s, 
and that, very likely. Aunt Lavinia would rec- 


76 


Cis Martin. 


ognize it as such, and say to grandpapa, with a 
smile, that Cecelia had gone beyond her depth 
and been obliged to call upon the doctor for as- 
sistance. So I discontinued to think, and turned 
my attention to what was going on about me, 
hoping to obtain a true local coloring and to 
lessen the burden that would otherwise fall upon 
father. 

All at once a man, whose duty, it seemed, 
was looking after the dinner, walked a few 
yards off from his roaring fire, and, picking up 
a man’s coat from the ground, called out, “Is 
this yer coat your’n, Dick ? ” 

Dick quitted his position beside the sawmill 
and, coming over to his coat, examined it criti- 
cally. The sleeves were both scorching, and 
there were several huge holes in the back ; it had 
evidently been smoldering for some time. He 
searched the pockets, and brought out a plug of 
tobacco and a knife; then he tossed the coat 
back upon the ground. 

“ It’s good it wan’t my Sunday coat,” he said, 
“ fer it’s plumb past mendin’.” 

I had not noticed before how the sparks flew 
all around about the cook’s dinner pot, and I 
thought this was a very interesting item of 
knowledge until I remembered my umbrella. 
I had hung my umbrella on a stump very near 
to that Are in the woods. When I regained 
possession of it the handle was hot, and when I 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 77 

opened it I saw two large holes. It was a hand- 
some silk umbrella that Aunt Lavinia had given 
me on my sixteenth birthday. 

“Burnt yer umbrel, mom?” inquired the 
cook, pleasantly. He did not seem any more 
concerned than he had been about Dick’s 
coat. 

I felt so very bad about the holes in my silk 
umbrella that I became thoroughly disgusted 
with the idea of attempting to write up an ar- 
ticle on the sawmills in the Tennessee moun- 
tains. Why hadn’t the cook told me that I was 
hanging my umbrella in a dangerous place ? 
He had stared at me when I hung it there. I 
could not write about the sawmills without 
speaking of the stupidity of the sawmill cook. 
Indeed, the majority of these mountain people 
were stupid. How had I ever come to imagine 
that I could make them interesting by putting 
them, and their habits, and their homes, and 
their dismal “ deadnin’s ” upon one side of note- 
sized paper, and sending it unrolled to an intel- 
ligent being in the outer world ? Aunt Lavinia 
had paid six dollars for my umbrella. 

But my spirits revived again as I wandered 
down the mountain by a bridle path and came 
out upon the main road at a rickety old bridge. 
I remembered how grandpapa had loved to 
listen to my verses, and how Aunt Lavinia had 
admired the smoothness of my school composi- 


78 


Cis Martin. 


tions, and how she had urged me to cultivate 
the talent that God had given me. I recollected 
the story of Tennyson’s perseverance, and I 
called myself a goose for becoming discouraged. 
I might not be able to write an article on saw- 
mills, for, after all, a person must know a sub- 
ject thoroughly before he can do it justice, and 
my writings ought to be altogether my own and 
not partially father’s. If I called in at the little 
mountain houses, as I had planned, and asked 
questions of the people, and wrote about their 
primitive manner of living, my article would 
certainly be better than my school compositions, 
and if Aunt Lavinia, who was not an easy per- 
son to please, liked my school compositions, 
surely other people as well as Aunt Lavinia 
would like my article. 

I sat down on a stump and ate the lunch that 
I had brought with me from the hotel, and I 
thought of mother and of father and the chil- 
dren, and I said to myself that I would never 
give up trying to be a help to the people I 
loved. 

I was obliged to climb a very high fence be- 
fore I could pay my first call, for that was the 
only way to reach the little wooden house. A 
young woman was sitting on the porch string- 
ing beans. She had a baby on her lap, and a 
dirty-faced little boy ran and hid behind her 
chair. I asked this woman if I might rest a 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 


79 


while, telling her that I was out walking and 
was feeling tired, and she said, “Yes, certain- 
ly.” But I did not find her either interesting 
or talkative. 

“ rd ask you in the house,” she said, “ only 
it ain’t fit.” I could see into the house, how- 
ever. In the middle of the floor was an immense 
pile of beans. When one thinks of the Ten- 
nessee mountains it is utterly impossible not to 
think of beans. All of the people have beans. 
They string them in the ordinary way first, and 
then they string them on a thread with a needle 
and hang them on nails driven into the house, 
under the protection of the porch roof. They 
will tell you that these beans are sweet and deli- 
cious in the winter time. 

Just before I called at the little house I had 
met a man carrying a jug, and had concluded 
that there must be a store near. So I started 
in questioning the woman by asking her about 
the whereabouts of the store. 

“Thar’s the creek store,” she said, “and 
thar’s the store down to the station.” 

“ But I met a man with a jug,” I said. “ He 
must have had molasses or coal oil. I know 
his jug wasn’t empty by the way he carried it, 
and he was going toward the creek store.” 

A glimmer of amusement showed itself in 
the woman’s eyes. “Laws! he wa’n’t goin’ to 
no store,” she said. “He’d jest set the jug 


80 


Cis Martin. 


down somewhars, and gone and picked it up. 
That thar wavS my brother.” 

I afterward learned that the man’s jug con- 
tained mountain dew, or moonshine whisky, and 
that all the mountain people in the region were 
laughing about Cis Martin taking a jug of moon- 
shine whisky for a jug of “ sweet’nin.” “ But 
furriners,” said the woman at the gristmill, 
“ they air jest bound to ask the funniest ques- 
tions.” 

As I sat there on the porch, with the little 
dirty-faced boy peeping at me from behind his 
mother’s chair, a brilliant idea came to me. 
The past is always more attractive than the 
present. These mountain people, peculiar 
enough in this latter part of the nineteenth 
century, must have been trebly curious and in- 
teresting half a century before. If only I could 
discover an aged mountaineer who had dwelt 
all his life on the Roan ! 

“ Is there any person around here, any very 
old person,” I asked the woman, “who knows 
about the mountains ? I mean a man who has 
lived here all his life.” 

“ Yas, mom,” returned the woman; “ thar’s 
Dave Hallum. He’s lived yer alkhis life. He’s 
about the oldest person in these yer mountuns. 
He knows all about ’em, I reckon.” 

‘ ‘ Does Dave Hallum live very far from 
here ? ” I asked, eagerly. 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 81 

‘'No, mom,” said the woman; “he lives 
about a quarter up the road.” 

After several questions I succeeded in obtain- 
ing a description of Dave Hallum’s house, for I 
had long ago discovered that my idea of a 
“ quarter of a mile ” and the mountain people’s 
“quarter” often varied. It was the second 
house to the right ; it had a pointed fence and a 
gate. I looked forward with relief toward go- 
ing through a gate as I climbed back over the 
high fence. 

But when, after walking for fully twenty 
minutes along the road, I came to the gate, I 
paused outside for a very serious reason ; there 
was a fierce-looking dog jumping and yelping 
in the yard. To be sure, the dog was tied ; but 
I have always been more afraid of dogs that are 
tied and that jump in the air, yelping, than of 
dogs that are not tied, for there is no telling 
when the rope or chain may give way, and then 
what a furious thing the dog would be ! Dave 
Hallum’s house had windows to it. Its long 
side was to the road ; a porch, extending to the 
end of the house, opened upon the other side. 
I could see the steps of the porch plainly, and 
one of the pillars, and I could also see the leg 
and foot of a man hanging out over the porch 
steps. The trousers were drawn up as if the 
owner had this leg over the other one. I was 
much pleased with the appearance of the red 
6 


82 


Cis Martin. 


yarn stocking and the thick shoe. I felt certain 
that this leg and foot belonged to Dave Hallum, 
the old man who knew everything about the 
Tennessee mountains. I would ask him dozens 
of questions ; I would become possessed of won- 
derful knowledge during my conversation with 
this old man. But why did not Dave Hallum 
call his dog and bid it cease barking at the 
stranger at the gate ? I was in a state of per- 
plexity, and wished that Tom were along to 
call out “ Hello! ” Then I cried out, loudly, 
“ Please call the dog! ” I repeated my petition 
several times, calling louder and louder, but 
still the dog jumped at the end of his rope and 
still the old man’s leg remained in an undis- 
turbed position. Then a horrible suspicion 
came to me : Could it be that Dave Hallum was 
deaf? 

At last a woman saw me through one of the 
windows, and she came out and quieted the dog, 
and said “Howdy!” I followed her to the 
porch and sat down, asking permission to rest. 
The old man was stringing beans. He nodded 
his head with a jerk and said something that I 
thought he must have meant for “Howdy!” 
but it wasn’t “Howdy!” Then he went on 
with his occupation of stringing beans. The 
woman stood in the doorway and stared at me. 
She was a comparatively young woman ; I 
thought she must be the old man’s daughter ; 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 


83 


but I learned afterward that she had married Dave 
Hallum for his money. Be this as it may, the 
old man was certainly no loser by the bargain. 
There came to me from Mrs. Hallum ’s bed- 
room and kitchen combined the smell of frying 
chicken, and the room, which I could see plain- 
ly, was fresh and clean. But it was a curious- 
looking room. The walls were papered with 
newspapers and the curtains consisted of maps. 
The bed in the corner was spotless, and the 
floor had been recently scrubbed. My hopes in 
regard to the old man began to rise. One would 
look for intelligence in a person living in such 
a tidy house ; besides, the woman down the 
road had said that he knew all about the moun- 
tains. Very likely the woman here always met 
the guests at the gate and -calmed the dog. 

‘ ‘ I hear you have lived in these mountains 
quite a long time,” I said, looking across at the 
old man. I myself am something of a stran- 
ger.” 

The old man returned my gaze, and I think 
that he said ‘ ‘ Huh ? ” 

The next time I spoke louder. 

The old man stooped and took up a fresh 
handful of beans, but he did not say a word. 

‘‘You live over yon to the big hotel, don’t 
you ? ” inquired the woman^ “ I seen you thar 
to the church-house with Mis’ Martin and Tom 
and them folks.” 


84 


Cis Martin. 


“ Yes/' I said, “ I live at the hotel.” 

“ I’ve been tryin’ to git up to see the big dam 
on the mountun,” said Mrs. Hallum. “The 
doctor is a powerful worker.” 

“Yes,” I said, “father is very energetic.” 

‘ ‘ I reckon mebbe as he’ll cut down all the 
trees in the mountuns before he gits through,” 
said Mrs. Hallum. “He seems took up with 
them sawmills. But yer maw she don’t like 
the mountuns overmuch, I reckon ? ” 

“ The mountains are very beautiful,” I said; 
but there wasn’t much warmth in my voice, for 
the old dog was dragging frantically at his rope 
again and the old man was sighing as his wife 
filled up his basin with beans. 

Every question that I put, with a vain hope, 
to the old man Mrs. Hallum answered; but 
she did not add to my knowledge of the Ten- 
nessee mountains, and she preferred greatly to 
talk of the big hotel and the dam that she was 
determined to see. I left the house with the 
pointed fence and the gate, without having 
heard the old man really speak a word. I 
turned my face toward home, but upon reach- 
ing the first hilltop I paused and listened in 
astonishment. Dave Hallum was fairly yelling 
questions at the woman, and the woman was 
yelling back her answers. 

Aunt Sabina told me the story of Dave Hal- 
lum. When he was a little boy he had been 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 85 

lost on the mountain. During an entire night 
he called for help, and in this way injured his 
throat. He had never been able to articulate 
clearly. He was also very deaf. 

As I walked along toward home I wished that 
I had borrowed Uncle Ben’s old bay — I was so 
very tired. I forgot all about Tennyson’s per- 
severance, and came to the conclusion that the 
mountain people, as a rule, were a most uninter- 
esting study. 

I have always prided myself upon knowing 
directions, and in order to shorten my walk 
home I struck across a field belonging to a 
mountain farm. I walked along in open ground 
for about a mile ; then I had the woods again, 
and then I came upon another field. It was a 
very large field, and I saw a group of sheep 
away down at the end ; they were running along 
the fence as if something had frightened them. 
I was in the middle of the field when I per- 
ceived a sheep lying on the ground not many 
yards away from me, with something lying be- 
side it ; this something closely resembled a 
great reddish-brown dog. I knew that dogs 
often killed sheep, but I was frightened at com- 
ing upon a dog eating a sheep off in a lonely 
field. I walked away from it as quietly as I 
could. But the red thing heard me, and got 
upon its feet and came after me. Every now 
and then I looked back, and always it was com- 


86 


Cis Martin. 


ing after me. I had thought at first that it was 
a dog, but after my second look I was sure that I 
was being followed by a wolf. I was afraid to run, 
but I never walked so fast in all my life. I had 
almost reached the fence, and was wondering if 
I would have time to climb the fence, if after I 
had climbed the fence I would dare to run, and 
if there would be a house near, when my nerves 
received a fresh shock — there sounded in my 
ears the loud report of a gun. I turned about 
trembling. I saw the wolf stagger and stumble 
and fall, and heard some one laugh out brightly 
and loudly. It was the woman from the grist- 
mill. 

“Well, I declare!” she cried, gayly. “I 
never knowed I’d live to shoot a wolf. I told 
Dolph I was gunno shoot the wolf, but I never 
knowed I’d do it. Laws! Cis’,” she went on, 
“ yer face is whiter’n yer maw’s! I believe 
you’re most skeered to death.” 

“ O, Mrs. Slade,” I cried, nervously, “ it was 
running me. It was eating a sheep, and it saw 
me, and it left off eating the sheep and ran 
me.” 

“Laws! Cis,” said Mrs. Slade, “the wolf 
wouldn’t hurt you ! It thought you was after it 
fer eatin’ the sheep. It won’t eat no more 
sheep. I’m gunno drag it down to the house to 
show Dolph and the old man.” 

She took hold of the dead wolf by its hind 







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A Stroll on the Mountain. 


87 


legs, and then she said, kindly: “Come down 
to the house and set a spell, Cis ; you’re plumb 
wore out. Why didn’t you take little Marg and 
them folks along with you ? I d’clare if I was 
you, I’d run away in the mornin’ with Jack’s 
hoss.” 

I accepted the gristmill woman’s invitation to 
go down to her house, but I did not walk very 
near to her on account of the dead wolf. 

When Dolph Slade came running up from the 
lot to meet his mother Mrs. Slade cried out, h'er 
eyes twinkling: “ Laws! Dolph, I was too late. 
Cis got ahead o’ me. Cis had already plumb 
shot the wolf.” 

“O!” cried Dolph Slade; then he saw my 
white face and added, “ Pshaw! ’tain’t so; you 
shot him yerself, maw.” His round face was 
aglow with pride and pleasure. 

The gristmill house had a bedroom as well as a 
kitchen, and Mrs. Slade invited me into the 
bedroom and handed me a rocking-chair. Then 
she settled herself upon a stool and looked at 
me. Dolph was outside keeping watch and 
ward over the dead wolf. 

“You ain’t skeered yet, air you, Cis? ” asked 
Mrs. Slade. “ I reckon you never seen a wolf 
before. I know you never seen a woman kill a 
wolf. I jest had the finest aim on the old feller, 
and he certainly did stumble and lay down nice.” 

I shuddered. 


88 


Cis Martin. 


‘‘You’re blue round the lips, Cis,” said Mrs. 
Slade. “ What was you takin’ sech a long walk 
fer? My man said he seen you start out early 
this morn in’ ; least he said he seen a gal walkin’ 
cross the bridge down yon, wearin’ a lightish 
frock and carryin’ a umbrel. He said he didn’t 
git a real good look ; but I knowed ’twas you. 
You ought to had little Marg and them folks 
along to skeer the wolves.” 

I was indignant. “None of the children 
ever saw a wolf, Mrs. Slade,” I said, “and 
mother told me that the mountains were per- 
fectly safe.” 

“They air; they’re jest as safe as they kin 
be,” said the gristmill woman. “But, laws! 
Cis, I can’t help laughin\ Yer maw didn’t 
think the mountuns was safe that time she was 
certain the big bear had gone off with little 
Marg. I wish,” she said, regarding me with a 
new interest, “Laws! I wish, Cis, that you’d 
hide.” 

“ Hide? ” I questioned, forgetting how fright- 
ened I still was in my curiosity to know why I 
should hide. 

“You could stay right yer in the house fer 
two or three days,” said the gristmill woman, 
eagerly. ‘ ‘ I wouldn’t let on to nobody whar 
you was. We’d get more fun than enough out 
o’ 5rer maw. I’d give most anything to see yer 
maw a-prayin’ round thoso mountuns once agin. 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 


89 


This time it would be, ‘ Lord, show me Cecilia; 
Lord, tell me whar Cecilia is ; let me see her once 
agin alive and safe.’ And she’d be lookin’ up 
to the tree tops fer you like she was fer 
little Marg. Yer maw told you these mountuns 
was safe, and you was most skeered to death by 
a wolf ; you jest get even with her, Cis, and let 
me hide you for two or three days.” 

'‘O, Mrs. Slade! ” I expostulated. 

“ ’Twould be sech fun,” pleaded Mrs. Slade. 

When Mrs. Slade discovered that I was firm 
in my intention of not hiding and frightening 
mother she begged me to spend the night with her. 

I’ll send Dolph over to tell yer maw where 
you air, Cis,” she said, “and I’ll have fried 
• chicken and soda biscuits for breakfast. 

I thanked her, but refused the invitation. 

“ But, laws! Cis, you can’t go home; you’re 
feered to go home,” she said, laughing. ‘ ‘ What 
you gunno do ? ” 

‘ ‘ I am going to ask you to go home with me, 
Mrs. Slade,” I said. 

Mrs. Slade laughed again. “ But you ain’t 
able to walk, Cis,” she said; “you’re plumb 
broke down with runnin’ from the wolf.” 

“ I can manage to walk home,” I said. 

But I didn’t walk home ; I went home riding 
double, with my arms around Mrs. Slade’s waist, 
while Mrs. Slade managed the bridle of her 
bony horse. 


90 


Cis Martin. 


“ You ought to have a taffy pullin’ up to the 
big hotel, Cis, ” the gristmill woman said to me 
as we rode along in this familiar fashion. “ It 
would jest be grand. The boys would furnish 
the sugar. All yer maw would have to do 
would be to lend the kittle and have Kit make 
up a rousin’ fire in the cookstove. You ain’t 
never been to a taffy pullin’ in the mountuns, 
nohow, and like as no yer maw wouldn’t let you 
go to none lest it was in the big hotel. She’d 
be skeered a wolf would ketch you.” Mrs. 
Slade laughed heartily over this witticism and 
then went on : “I reckon, Cis, you plumb forgot 
to ask yer paw about the shuckin’. It would 
jest be grand fer to have the shuckin’ follered 
up by the taffy pullin’. You could play on the 
big fiddle after the taffy pullin’, and we’d all 
have a good time together. I wish you’d ask 
yer paw about it, Cis. The doctor is jest gunno 
do anything you want.” 

I felt as if Mrs. Slade had saved my life by 
shooting the wolf, and I knew that father and 
mother would be very willing to have both the 
shucking and the taffy pulling after they heard 
about the wolf. So I promised that I would 
ask father, as I rode along with my arms around 
her waist. 

The inhabitants of the hotel were greatly ex- 
cited ‘when they saw me coming home from my 
walk on horseback behind Mrs. Slade, Mother 


A Stroll on the Mountain. 


91 


and the little girls came rushing out the house to 
meet me, and Tom hurried up from the creek, 
where he had been fishing. 

“ Why, Cecelia, what is the matter?” asked 
mother. 

“O, mother,” I cried, I have had a terrible 
experience in the Tennessee mountains ; I have 
been run by a wolf.” 

‘ ‘ Laws ! I declare to goodness, the wolf 
wasn’t gunno hurt nobody,” I heard the voice of 
Mrs. Slade protesting, but I seemed far away 
from everybody, though my head was on moth- 
er’s shoulder. “ Laws! Cis, the wolf he was 
skeered too.” 

Then I heard Tom ask, in a quivering voice, 
“ Where is the wolf? ” And I heard Mrs. Slade 
answer, triumphantly : ‘ ‘ Laws ! Tom, I shot the 
wolf plumb dead. Little Marg and you folks 
must come over to the gris’mill to see him.” 


92 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER VI. 

The Huskingf Party* 

ATHER and mother were so grateful to 



Mrs. Slade for shooting the wolf that ar- 


rangements were made for the shucking 
and taffy pulling to come off as soon as the corn 
was ripe. When the mountain women heard of 
this they came dropping in to see us and to ask 
questions. Mrs. Slade was in her glory. 

“ Laws! ” she said, “ if we won’t have the 
biggest kind of a time 1 If you furriners give 
the huskin^ it won’t be no more’n fair fer the 
rest of us to fetch the victuals. Mis’ Martin 
musn’t have anything to do but to lend us one 
o’ them white cloths fer the ’stension table and 
show us how to fix up the table fine. Cis is 
gunno play her best on the big fiddle.” 

One night mother came into my room after I 
was in bed and sat down beside me. It was a 
bright, moonlight night, and I could see mother’s 
face plainly. I thought she was looking very 
pale. At first she spoke of. the shucking, and 
we laughed over the questions that the mountain 
people had been asking ; then she mentioned the 
school in the house, and told me how glad she 
was to see the improvement in the children since 
I had taken them in charge. 


The Husking Party. 


93 


“But Tom says that Jake Mudd is a better 
teacher than I, mother/’ I said. 

“ O, the idea! ” said mother. 

I knew by the way in which mother was talk- 
ing about things that she had something on her 
mind ; that she had not come into my room for 
the purpose of discussing either the shucking or 
the children’s school in the house. The very 
way in which she said, “ O, the idea! ” when I 
told her that Tom said Jake Mudd was a better 
teacher than I, showed that she was thinking of 
something else. At last it came out. 

“ Cecelia,” she said, and she laid her hand 
upon my hand and patted it gently, “ I am 
going to ask you a question. I hope you won’t 
think it a strange question, and I trust you will 
agree with me that it is the right thing to do.” 

I sat straight up in bed. “ What is it, moth- 
er ? ” I asked. 

‘ ‘ The old man who has been keeping the 
Roan post office,” said mother, in alow voice, “ is 
going away. His son, living over in Virginia, 
has sent for him, and he is wild to go ; he was 
born and bred in Virginia.” She gave a little 
quivering sigh, and, somehow, I thought of the 
prosperous town in New York where mother 
herself was born and bred, and of grandpapa 
and Aunt Lavinia. “ The trouble with the old 
man is that he cannot leave the post office, for 
not many of these people know how to read. 


94 


Cis Martin. 


my dear.” Then mother looked away from me 
and added, “ Would you mind very much, 
Cecelia, if we — if I were to keep the post office? ” 

‘ ‘ Keep the Roan post office, us^ you^ mother ? ” 
I cried, in bewilderment. ^‘Why should we 
keep the post office? ” 

'‘Cissy,” said my mother, “we are very 
poor.” 

“Yes, I know,” I .said, “ but surely, mother, 
father would not let us keep the post office.” 

“ If you and I ask him, Cecelia, I think he 
will ; yes, I am sure he will. You have been 
here only for a little while, you do not know how 
often your father has been deceived. The price 
of lumber may be less than he expected, or it 
may not measure out well, or so much of it be 
No. 2 when he was confident it would be No. 
I ; and the market is so far away. I am afraid 
that the lumber business will never be as satis- 
factory as your father would wish. I do not 
like to ask him for money for every little thing 
when I know that he has no money to give me, 
and winter is coming. We are already in debt 
at the creek store.” 

It is impossible to describe the wave of humil- 
iation that swept over me when mother said that 
we were in debt at the creek store. It was such 
a poor little place, where the men sat around 
upon the counter and spit upon the floor. The 
principal commodity was canned goods, but there 


95 


The Husking Party. 

were also groceries and tobacco and a shelf of 
calicoes and cottons, all of them accessible to the 
flies. 

‘‘Of course,” said mother, “the post office 
would only bring in a very little money at first, 
but after a while it might pay very well. Your 
father says that some Northern man is talking 
about building a large summer hotel about a 
mile further around on Roan, and that would 
bring summer visitors.” 

‘ ‘ And we would have to keep the post office 
for the summer visitors? ” I asked, my cheeks 
burning. 

‘ ‘ I have lived here for more than three years,” 
said mother ; “all my pride has gone from me. 
I have seen so much misery and sorrow going 
about among the sick. I have even conquered 
my longing for riches. I shall be satisfied if 
God will just give me enough to educate the 
children and to know that when I am gone — ” 

“Mother,” I interrupted, sobbingly, “Why 
do you say such dreadful things? Why should 
you come and ask me anything about the post 
office. Jack is right; you should not ask my 
advice ; you are wiser than I. Why don’t you 
just tell me that you have made up your mind 
to keep the post office ? Why should I have any 
objections to anything that you consider right? ” 
I put my arms around her neck and hugged her 
vehemently. 


96 


Cis Martin. 


“Well, then, to-morrow we will both per- 
suade father into letting us keep post office in 
the Tennessee mountains,” said my mother, un- 
locking my arms and kissing me. 

Father said at first that the idea of our ac- 
cepting the Roan post office was preposterous ; 
that he would not hear of it. That was in the 
morning. At noon he rode in upon us unex- 
pectedly. He was on his way to the station to 
see about the ordering of some freight cars. 
He said to mother, with a laugh, “ Well, what 
about the post office ? ” That night father agreed 
that mother and I could do anything foolish we 
pleased, but added that the day would arrive 
when we would be in the same predicament as 
old Perkins. “ And it may not be an easy mat- 
ter to get rid of your self-assumed responsibility. 
Now, Jake Mudd might manage to see to the mail 
in the mornings and evenings — I wonder old 
Perkins did not think of him — but Jake Mudd 
is not a fixture.” 

There was little salary attached to the Roan 
post office. The mail was very insignificant; 
indeed, when the people received letters we 
were obliged to send them word. A few of the 
mountaineers subscribed for weekly papers. I 
wondered who read these papers until little 
Marg explained to me that all of Jake Mudd’s 
pupils knew how to read . J ake Mudd subscribed 
for a daily paper and several magazines. The 


The Husking Party. 


97 


time when we had a rush at the post office was 
when the message went forth that the medical 
memorandum books had arrived. These books 
the mountain people considered something 
worth coming to the office after, something 
“ wuth carryin’ home.” They kept their 
meager accounts in the medicine books, and re- 
joiced over a new one. Mother and I wrote 
most of the letters that went out from the office, 
and when I went to using a bottle of red ink 
that I had brought with me from grandpapa’s 
the people were so delighted that they sent 
more letters than usual. “ I’ll write to my dat- 
ter,” said one woman, “ while you got thatthar 
red ink. I want you to write the letter plumb 
through with it, Cis, and back it with it too ; it 
certainly is a beautiful color ; I never seen no ink 
like it before.” Even Uncle Ben was moved to 
write a letter to his nephew, Charles Hanson, on 
account of the red ink. Keeping the post office 
was rather amusing after all. 

These mountain people were full of simplic- 
ity. It seemed a ridiculous thing for father to 
give a shucking when one looked at our corn- 
field. It consisted of about seven acres of land, 
and the corn was very thin over it ; indeed, we 
had difficulty in hiring a man to work the corn. 
But everybody around intended to come to the 
shucking. Early in the morning of the ap- 
pointed day we could hear the people arriving. 

7 


98 


Cis Martin. 


Kit had risen with the lark and made a roaring 
fire in the cooking stove. We were expected 
to have but one big meal for our guests, and that 
about the middle of the day. In the evening 
we were to have the taffy pulling, and everybody 
was to eat taffy. 

Father had stayed at home that day because 
no work was going on at the sawmill ; all the 
mill hands were in our little lot cutting and 
husking out the corn. The women had brought 
flour and chickens along with them. Mrs. Slade 
asked mother to show her how to put the dishes 
on the ’stension table. 

“ You’re too little to be rackin’ round amongst 
all us folks,” said the gristmill woman, laugh- 
ing delightedly. “You jest show us ’bout the 
dishes, and then go long and ’tend post office.” 
Mrs. Slade winked across at me. “ ’Tending 
post office, ” of course, meant doing nothing. 

Mother and I showed the women how to set 
the table, with Kit joining in. We let them 
have our china because they were all in such 
admiration of it, and we hoped sincerely that 
nothing would happen to it. The women were 
greatly astonished when we pulled the extension 
table out to its greatest dimensions, ’and Kit 
laughed loudly in the triumph of her superior 
knowledge. We let them have our silver forks 
and ivory-handled knives. 

“ It will only be for once,” mother said to 


99 


The Husking Party. 

me, ‘‘and they are all so much like children. 
They will remember this day and talk about it 
for years.” 

Mother and I were standing on the porch 
when Mrs. Slade came running out. 

“Mis’ Martin,” she inquired, breathlessly, 
“ kin we put some o’ the coffee in this yer chiny 
teapot? It’s too purty to be settin’ back thar in 
the cupboard. And what on earth do we do 
with these yer little fixin’s? ” 

The little fixings which Mrs. Slade held in 
her hand consisted of a diminutive sugar bowl 
and a number of small plates. 

“ Where did you find them?” asked mother. 

“They was back behind that thar powerful 
big meat dish that Kit’s pilin’ up with chicken,” 
replied Mrs. Slade. “ What do we do with ’em 
anyway. Mis’ Martin?” 

“Why, they’re my dishes,” cried the shrill 
voice of my sister Lavinia. “ I thought they 
were lost up in New York.” 

After that memorable meal on the extension 
table, which lasted for several hours, for only 
fourteen people could be seated at once, the men 
sat around in the lot and along the mountain 
road, waiting for the taffy pulling. They had fin- 
ished cutting and shucking the corn before the 
dinner. The women waited in the house, wan- 
dering all through it, examining the furniture 
minutely, jumping themselves and their babies 


100 


Cis Martin. 


upon the upholstered chairs, and admiring 
everything. Some of them even went to the 
closet in my room and to my bureau drawers, 
and made a thorough inspection of my wardrobe. 
I was petitioned to try on my various costumes, 
but begged off, declaring that I would be too 
tired to attend the taffy pulling. 

“ Laws! we mustn’t tire Cis out fer nothin’,” 
said Mrs. Slade. “ She’ll be kept busy enough 
to-night playing the big fiddle fer the folks.” 

None of our family had ever been to a taffy 
pulling. The sugar was put in the large pre- 
serving kettle and covered with water, and after 
a little some vinegar was poured in. It did not 
take more than half an hour to make the taffy ; 
then Mrs. Slade and Kit poured it out to cool, 
and the mountain girls began to look bashful, 
and the mountain boys began laughing and 
teasing one another. I perceived that, although 
the married people were going to help pull taffy 
at this taffy pulling because it happened to be 
at the big hotel, the real taffy pulling was an 
entertainment for young people, and that the 
grown folks about Roan expected to get a good 
deal of hilarious enjoyment while watching the 
young people. 

I was standing at one of the dining-room win- 
dows, gazing out at the stars for a change, when 
a voice behind me said, “ Say, Cis, will you pull 
taffy with me? ” 


101 


The Husking Party. 

I turned about, and there was Jake Mudd, 
with his big eyes upon me, and a little away from 
him was a group of young men. My face grew 
red, for I knew that each of the mountain boys 
had picked me out for a partner, but Jake Mudd 
had got ahead of them. 

Mattie and Lavinia giggled when they saw 
me pulling taffy with Jake Mudd. He had to 
show me how to do it, for I had never been to 
a taffy pulling before. I wished that my sisters 
would hush giggling, and I looked at them 
sharply once or twice, but it did not do any 
good. It was only polite of me to pull taffy 
with Jake Mudd when the taffy pulling was at 
our own house, and then, besides, I was very 
glad that he had asked me instead of any of the 
other young men. Jake Mudd did not look like 
the other young men. He had a very good 
mind, and father said that he deserved a great 
deal of praise for getting himself up in the world. 
Of course he wasn’t up very high ; but he in- 
tended to go to college as soon as he could make 
enough money teaching school. It was very 
rude of Lavinia and Mattie to giggle and whis- 
per loud enough for me to hear. I was glad 
that Jake Mudd didn’t understand what they 
were talking about. 

I wonder,” whispered Mattie, “ if he knows 
that she knows more Latin than he does? Tom 
says she don’t, but she says she does.” 


102 


Cis Martin. 


‘ ‘ I wonder, ’ ’ whispered Lavinia, “ if he knows 
that she knows more ’rithmetic than he does? 
Tom says she don’t, but even mother says that, 
of course, she does.” 

Jake Mudd seemed to understa;nd that I was 
displeased with the whisperings of Lavinia and 
Mattie, and he began to talk, thereby completely 
drowning their voices. He could talk very well, 
for he subscribed for a daily paper and several 
magazines. By and by he asked me how J liked 
Roan, and whether it wouldn’t be a good thing 
for mother and all of us when the Northern man 
built the summer hotel. 

“It would give you some society,” he said. 

I was pleased with Jake Mudd for knowing 
that we were different from the mountain peo- 
ple and could not really enjoy ourselves among 
them. But I was not at all sure that I desired 
the Northern man to build the summer hotel. 

“ This house was built for a hotel,” I said, 
“and it was never finished. I should think 
that after such a failure no one would think of 
building another.” 

“ O, but the new hotel is to be on a much 
larger scale,” said Jake Mudd ; “ there’s plenty 
of capital to back it and a wide influence. The 
man who built this house put all his money in 
it and a little money belonging to other people, 
and then failed. Of course capital and push are 
both needed to start any kind of a business.” 


103 


The Husking Party. 

So the new hotel was to come, and mother 
and 1 would keep the post office for the boarders. 
Jake Mudd didn’t seem to think of that. , 

“ Everything will be much livelier here in 
the mountains,” he went on. “ They’ll be apt 
to give a great many entertainments at the new 
hotel. I’ll like that.” Then I knew that, al- 
though Jake Mudd was of the opinion that 
mother and I could find no social enjoyment in 
the company of the mountain people, he regarded 
himself as a person who would also be benefited 
by the society of the new hotel, and somehow I 
rather liked him for it. He really was very 
good-looking, and while he used a few queer 
words like the other mountain people, he was a 
very interesting talker on the whole. He looked 
straight at you when he talked, and every now 
and then he laughed, and he had a very pleasant 
laugh. He asked me how I was coming on with 
my school and if I liked teaching. Then I 
asked him about his school, and he told me 
some very amusing stories. 

The gristmill woman said to me later in the 
evening that she was sure and certain from the 
moment the taffy pulling was planned that Jake 
Mudd would pull taffy with me. 

“ Them kind o’ things have a way of arrang- 
ing themselves, Cis,” she said, and she almost 
fell over laughing when I explained that per- 
sons were obliged to be polite in their own house. 


104 


Cis Martin. 


The taffy pulling lasted until about nine 
o’clock, and then I was called upon to play the 
big fiddle. First I played a dance tune, but the 
young people grew so lively over it that I quickly 
changed to more solemn music. When Aunt 
Sabina came to me and begged, Cis, please, 
mom, play a hymn,” I ran my fingers along the 
keys, bringing out their favorite hymn, and they 
all began to sing : 

“We shall jine the heavenligh choir by and by, by and by." 

The mountain people delighted in hymns. I 
think they would have sung till morning, but 
father finally broke up the entertainment. 

“You are tired to death,” he said to me. 
“You shouldn’t have allowed these people to 
keep you so long at the piano. ” ‘ ‘ How are all of 
you going to get back to your homes to-night? ” 
he inquired, turning about to our guests. 

The mountain people replied that they reck- 
oned they’d manage, and then the crowd began 
to disperse. Mrs. Slade, with Dolph racking at 
the tail of her frock, as she expressed it, was 
among the last to depart. It was in the hall 
that she expressed herself in regard to Jake 
Mudd. 

Only the men who lived near went to their 
homes that night ; the rest of them slept around 
with their Roan neighbors, and about a dozen 
spent the night in our little barn, 


105 


The Husking Party. 

The women had washed the dishes and put 
them carefully away, and everybody had taken 
pains not to drop taffy upon the floor, so that 
the house was really very tidy. All the lamps 
had been lighted and all the rooms thrown open. 
I wandered about, looking at everything. What 
a strange entertainment we had given here in 
the Tennessee mountains! How different it 
would have been if we had had this great, hand- 
some house up in the New York town and we 
had given a party! I ran my fingers lightly 
along the keys of the grand piano as I passed 
it, aiid then I walked across the hall and into 
the sitting room. The sitting room was bril- 
liantly lighted. A mountain woman’s sun bon- 
net, left behind, was lying on the secretary. 
Its bright color attracted my eyes, and then I 
stood there gazing silently at the vSecretary. In 
the second drawer of the secretary was my 
father’s historical novel, Semiramis. If Senii- 
ramis were to be accepted by a good publisher, 
we might have a house as grand as this situated 
opposite grandpapa’s. I danced across the floor 
and out into the hall, and caught little Marg 
asleep on the stairs. I awoke her with a kiss, 
and the two of us went hand in hand up the 
long stairs to bed. 

It was about three o’clock in the morning that 
I heard some one pounding on the door and at the 
Sfime time the ringing of the dinner bell below, 


106 


Cis Martin. 


“ Cecelia,” cried the voice in the hall, “open 
your door.” 

I sprang to my feet and opened the door. 

“ Put on your clothes and come down,” said 
father. “There’s fire in the back of the 
house.” 

I had worn my cotton dress at the taffy pull- 
ing, and I put it on after father’s alarming 
statement and ran down stairs. There was 
dense smoke in the hall, puffing in from the rear 
of the house. Father and Jack were carrying 
water from the well in buckets, and Tom was 
ringing the bell. Mother and the little girls 
were standing together, begging father and 
Jack to keep away from the fire. 

“ I would have helped father and Jack,” little 
Marg confided to me the next day, ‘ ‘ but mother 
wouldn’t let me.” 

In a few minutes a number Of men came up 
from the direction of the barn and then they 
came pouring in from the Roan houses. But 
they were a stupid lot. They stood with their 
hands in their pockets and talked about the fire 
and speculated as to how it originated, finally 
blaming the women for not attending to the 
cooking stove properly. Father ordered them 
to bring water, but they paid no attention to 
him. Suddenly some one cried out, “If the 
hotel burns, the big fiddle’ll burn.” 

The hotel might have been saved if it had 


The Husking Party. 


107 


not been for the big fiddle. Of one accord all 
the men made for the hotel parlor. There were 
so many men that they were in one another’s 
way, but no man had any thought of saving the 
house or anything else while the big fiddle was 
in danger. Father gave up carrying water with 
no one but Jack to help him, and he went up 
stairs in the burning house and began throwing 
mattresses and bed clothing out of the windows 
while Jack, obeying orders, dragged them to a 
safe distance. From where I was standing with 
mother and the children I could see the flames 
licking their way around the corner of the house 
and the dense volumes of smoke puffing out of 
the windows in that portion of the hotel where 
the flames had not yet reached. Mother was 
very much frightened. She did not seem to 
care whether anything was saved or not ; she 
was like a person not thoroughly awake. Lavinia 
was whimpering over the loss of the doll dishes 
that Mrs. Slade had discovered behind the 
powerful meat dish, and all at once little Marg 
set up a howl for father. Then suddenly I 
thought of something. I had been standing, a 
useless person, beside mother, and there was 
that host of men tenderly carrying the grand 
piano out through the hall door, and there were 
father and Jack saving the bedding ; not a single 
person Was trying to save Semirainis. I ran to 
the hotel. The men were lifting my piano off 


108 


Cis Martin. 


the porch, but the hallway was filled with the 
men following on behind. I climbed into the 
sitting room through the window. I put my 
hand up to keep the smoke from my nostrils. 
It was so dark that I could not see a thing. I 
heard a crashing sound in the back of the house 
and knew that the kitchen had fallen in. The 
upper part of the main building was in flames. 
I made a frantic plunge in what I imagined was 
the direction of the secretary and fell against 
the sofa. Then father’s voice sounded at the 
hall door. 

‘‘ If anyone is in the building,” he said, “ it’s 
time to come out.” He was calling to the men ; 
he thought that I was with mother and the 
children. I said a prayer aloud that I might 
save Semiramis and groped my way along the 
wall. Then I heard the sound of a drawer 
opening, and the next minute some one was 
pushing me roughly toward the door. 

“ Hurry,” ordered Jack, ‘‘I’ve got it.” 

The house fell with a terrific crash, but Jack 
and I were safe away from it, still running. Jack 
with Semiramis under his arm. 

Even in the excitement of that moment there 
was a great joy upon me over the rescue of 
Semiramis, *and there was also in my bosom a 
wonderful pride in Jack, 

We went across to Aunt Sabina’s, a houseless 
company, and the good woman persuaded m ther 


The Husking Party. 


109 


to lie on her bed and brought us a pot of tea. 
Mother did not much resemble a mountain doc- 
tor as she lay there on Aunt Sabina's bed ; the 
rest of us drank our tea and went back to view 
the ruins of the handsome hotel. 

The mattresses and bed clothing, together 
with the other things that father had saved from 
the fire, were scattered in every direction over 
the lot, and about thirty yards from the house 
stood the big fiddle. It was a piece of furniture 
that had been in keeping with the finest room 
in the hotel, but it looked sadly out of place sit- 
ting there in the mountain lot. 

I stumbled over the rescued mail-bag, and 
gazed for a long minute at the smoldering build- 
ing, then I put my head down on the big fiddle, 
and felt the morning sunshine streaming upon 


me. 


no 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER VIL 
Separation* 

W HAT! ” exclaimed my father, ‘‘leave 
your house for us I I will not hear 
of such a thing 1 ” 

Father was speaking to Uncle Ben, who stood 
before him in the attitude of a person asking a 
tremendous favor. 

“ Wal, we’re gunno leave the house,” said 
Uncle Ben ; “ you kin do what you please about 
livin’ in it or no. It won’t be no use to us.” 
Then Aunt Sabina joined in. 

“ We’re goin’ across the mountuntothe other 
farm,” she said. “It don’t make much differ- 
ence whar we live, and thar’s room enough in 
the house over yon fer the folks that’s in it 
a’ready and us too. Laws ! thar was plumb too 
much room in this yer house fer Ben and me 
anyway.” 

“You are too kind to us,” said father, with a 
break in his voice, and Tom began to cry. 

“ Laws! what’s the matter with you, Tom?” 
asked Aunt Sabina, patting Tom’s white head. 

‘ ‘ I don’t want you to go over yon to the other 
farm,” said Tom. “ I don’t want to live in no 
place in the Tennessee mountains but in the big 
hotel.” 


Separation. 


Ill 


‘ ‘ But the big hotel is burnt plumb to the 
ground, Tom,” said Aunt Sabina. “ How air 
you gunno live in a house when it’s burnt plumb 
to the ground ? ” 

“ I want to live right across the road from 
you and Uncle Ben,” howled Tom. 

‘‘Laws! Tom,” said Uncle Ben, cheerily, 
‘ ‘ you children kin git round the mountuns 
quicker’n most anything I ever seen. You ain’t 
gunno let two and a quarter keep you away 
from me and Aunt Sabina. I know better’n 
that.” He, too, looked down at Tom with ten- 
der solicitude. 

My brother Tom was sitting on the steps in 
the hall. Up above him the three little girls 
were standing, a solemn trio. I was in the door 
of the sitting room. Poor mother was too ill 
to be anywhere but in bed. Our servant. Kit, 
had deserted us directly after the fire. She said 
no, indeedie, she couldn’t live with the furriners 
no more after that thar fire. Aunt Sabina and 
Uncle Ben seemed very sorry for us; they were 
going to do what they could for these people 
who had come into their mountains and were in 
such a helpless condition. They were going to 
see, at least, that we had a roof over our heads. 

“ What you goin* to do with old Bay, Uncle 
Ben ? ” asked little Marg from her place on the 
stairs. 

The old farmer looked up at little Marg and 


112 


Cis Martin. 


laughed softly. She had made a bright spot in 
his life, she and the others. 

“ I’m gun no leave him that thar corn and hay 
down yon in the barn,” he said, and you folks 
must exercise him some. Old Bay wouldn’t 
know whar he was if I’d carry him round to the 
other farm ! ” 

“ Uncle Ben,” I broke in, ‘‘you must not 
leave the bay horse for the children.” 

“ Wal,” said Uncle Ben, deliberately, I jest 
ain’t a gunno take him. I got no use fer him 
over to the other farm.” 

Surely no kinder-hearted people ever breathed 
than Aunt Sabina and Uncle Ben. Without 
any further talk about the matter they set to 
work to move their humble belongings to the 
other farm. Here, too, they showed their gen- 
erosity, leaving behind them a bedstead, the 
dining table, and half a dozen kitchen chairs. 
“Them things we won’t need,” Aunt Sabina 
declared; but I overheard Uncle Ben say to his 
wife that Mis’ Martin must have a bed to sleep 
in, and that furriners couldn’t git along without 
plenty o’ cheers and a dinin’ table. “ The doc- 
tor, ” said U ncle Ben, ‘ ‘ ain’t the kind of a man fer 
to think o’ knockin’ up these yer things with tim- 
ber out o’ the woods.” They also had no fur- 
ther use for the cooking stove. 

They went away two days after the fire and 
left us in complete possession, without any ar- 


Separation. 


113 


rangement as to how long we were to remain or 
a word about the rent or anything. 

‘‘ These people are the most generous in the 
world,” said father, ‘'but, of course, I will see 
to paying them rent for the few months that we 
remain in their house. I will rebuild on the 
site of the hotel just as soon as possible. If 
only I could prevail upon Kirk to come here to 
the mountains and talk over a few necessary 
matters. We won’t put up quite as fine a house 
as the hotel. Cissy,” he said to me, “but I have 
no doubt it will be more comfortable and home- 
like. The big hotel was just a little too much 
on the order of a huge barn. We will have a 
parlor of a moderate size, plenty large enough 
for the grand piano, and a cosy little sitting 
room for mother, and a dining room that will 
be easier to keep tidy than the old one. But I 
think we must have a polished chestnut ceiling 
to the new dining room too. The kitchen door 
must open to the south. It won’t be so much 
trouble, perhaps, to get a mountain girl to cook 
for us if we have a smaller kitchen.” 

“ I want a room to myself, father,” said my 
sister Lavinia, who had been eagerly drinking 
in the plans for the new house. 

“ So do I,” said Mattie. 

“ I want a real little room for myself,” said 
Margaret. 

So father, smiling pleasantly, promised each 
8 


114 


Cis Martin. 


of his daughters whatever they wished in the 
shape of rooms in the new house. 

“ Is Tom goin’ to have a room for himself? ” 
asked Mattie; “and where will Jack sleep, 
father? ” 

“Jack will be away at college,” said little 
Marg. 

I had written to grandpapa immediately after 
the fire, telling him of it and of mother’s ill- 
ness, and about Aunt Sabina and Uncle Ben 
kindly lending us their little mountain home, 
explaining to him that this house was much 
better than the usual run of mountain houses, 
that it had three rooms on the first floor and 
three more under the roof ; and I told him about 
the men saving my grand piano, and how they 
had managed to get it into Aunt Sabina’s house, 
though it filled up one of the front rooms, leav- 
ing very little space for a person to walk about 
in front of it. 

Aunt Lavinia answered this letter for grand- 
papa. She said that both she and grandpapa 
were very much worried over the news of the 
fire, and asked for further particulars. They 
were thankful, she said, that we all had escaped 
with our lives, though they did not much won- 
der that mother was ill. Then she asked if we 
had got our clothes out of the hotel, and in case 
we had not been so fortunate, desired me to 
send her the children’s measures, together with 


Separation. 


US 


a full description of each. Aunt Lavinia was 
always a great person for having clothes match 
the complexion and the hair. She said that she 
trusted father would not let us remain long in 
the home of those phenomenally good old moun- 
tain people, but would move us to the nearest 
town and see that we wer^ comfortably housed 
for the winter. 

I know the size for your dresses and. of your 
mother’s,” Aunt Lavinia added in her lengthy 
postscript, ‘ ‘ so you need not bother to take any 
measures but those of the children. Of course 
your dresses ought to be several inches longer, 
but your figure was fully developed when you 
were here at your grandfather’s. I should im- 
agine that Jack is a good-sized boy, and I cannot 
help wondering at your father not sending him 
away to school. He has been in the timber busi- 
ness now for over three years, but I presume he 
knows his own affairs. Be sure to measure the 
children correctly around the shoulders, the 
neck and waist, length of the arm and length 
of the skirt or trousers, as the case may be. I in- 
close a tape measure. Your grandfather is 
greatly disturbed over the fact that you no 
longer speak of returning to the North, as was 
your father’s original intention. I should think 
that after the fire you would all have had 
enough of the Tennessee mountains. I trust 
your mother will be better soon. She has 


116 


Cis Martin. 


evidently handed her letter-writing over to 
you.” 

The children were very much excited over 
the idea of the new clothes, and rejoiced openly 
that father had neglected to throw their old 
clothes out the hotel windows. The girls all 
wanted to know how I was going to describe 
them to Aunt Lavinia, and little Marg hinted 
broadly for a dress with dots in it. “I seen a 
piece of goods over to the creek store with dots 
in it, Cissy,” she said; “it was beautiful — it 
would make a lovely dress for a little girl.” 

“I have brown hair,” said Mattie, medita- 
tively, “ and Fve got brown eyes, I think.” 

“ Does Viny look like Aunt Lavinia? ” asked 
Tom. 

“ Don’t tell Aunt Lavinia that I fell and cut 
my forehead on a stone,” said Mattie, beseech- 
ingly. 

I took the children’s measures with a great 
deal of care, and when Jack came home in the 
evening I showed him Aunt Lavinia’s letter. 

A deep red glow came into Jack’s cheeks as he 
read with some difficulty Aunt Lavinia’s fine 
writing ; then he put the letter back in the en- 
velope and returned it to me. 

“ She won’t get my measure,” he said. “You 
tell her that father can buy clothes here in the 
Tennessee mountains that are good enough for 


Separation. 


117 


“ O, Jack! ” I protested. 

“ If you had some good clothes, Jack,” said 
Tom, earnestly, “ maybe it might be easier for 
father to send you to college.” 

“ Father can send me to college and buy my 
clothes too,” said Jack ; “ Fm not afraid to trust 
to father.” He went out the room whistling. 

Upon the receipt of my letter Aunt Lavinia 
wrote at once to inquire the number of the chil- 
dren’s shoes. She was, indeed, very kind. 

When the clothes came from New York there 
was nothing for Jack, and Aunt Lavinia did not 
mention his name in the letter accompanying 
them. She sent three dresses for each of the 
little girls and two suits for Tom, and shoes for 
the four of them. The children had not had 
such pretty clothes since they had come to Ten- 
nessee. Aunt Lavinia also sent clothes and 
shoes to mother and me. My dresses fitted to 
perfection, and they reached to my ankles, 
making me feel quite tall. I had told her that 
we wished very plain clothes, but Aunt Lavinia 
was never an admirer of great simplicity. The 
little girls’ dresses had lace or ribbon about the 
neck and sleeves, and Tom’s little suits were 
each accompanied by a great silk necktie like 
little boys were wearing. Aunt Lavinia had 
said that she knew my size and mother’s size, 
and I had not possessed the courage to unde- 
ceive her in regard to mother; but my dear. 


118 


Cis Martin. 


thin little mother was almost lost in the clothes 
that would have fitted her three years before, 
and I felt sick to the heart when I set to work 
remodeling them. 

When the mountain people heard about our 
clothes they all came trooping in to see them, 
and the gristmill woman said that she reckoned 
little Marg and them folks was powerful glad 
the big hotel had burnt down. 

Father looked us all over when we were 
dressed for church. 

‘‘ My ! ” he said, ‘ ‘ but we are fine ; everybody 
but Jack. I must see to sending to New York 
for a suit for Jack. Jack is a funny fellow; he 
does not care for presents from his relatives. 
Your Aunt Lavinia is wonderfully kind, but I 
trust the day will arrive when I can return the 
present.” 

“I trust so too, father,” I said; but I was 
looking down. Then, suddenly, I thought of 
Semiramis, and I looked up. “ Of course the 
day will come, father,” I cried, brightly; “T 
am just as sure of it as I can be.” 

Father kissed me gratefully for saying that. 

' And I must manage to pay Uncle Ben for 
the use of his house,” he said, looking at us 
all again. “It doesn’t seem right for the 
rent to remain unpaid while my people are so 
fine.” 

“ Uncle Ben don’t want no rent,” said Tom, 


Separation. 


119 


easily. “ He has more money now than he 
knows what to do with.” 

This was a fact. The needs of Uncle Ben and 
Aunt Sabina were less than their means. But 
for all that I did most sincerely hope that father 
would see his way to paying rent for the little 
house. 

I do not like to talk about that winter in Aunt 
Sabina’s house, for, of course, Mr. Kirk never 
came to the Tennessee mountains, and father 
was not able to build on the site of the big hotel. 
Through the front windows of Aunt Sabina’s 
house we could see the ruins of the big hotel, with 
the streams dashing before and behind them. 

One would naturally suppose that the winter 
was warm as far south as Tennessee, but the 
mercury fell to sixteen degrees below zero. 
During the early part of the winter my sisters 
and Tom grumbled not a little at being obliged 
to go to school in such a very little house, and 
they all declared — the girls agreeing vehe- 
mently with Tom — that they could learn more 
if mother would send them to Jake Mudd. I 
think the girls were anxious to wear their new 
dresses to the little wooden schoolhouse and let 
Jake Mudd and the mountain children see their 
fine feathers. When Jake Mudd’s school broke 
up at Christmas they grumbled less over my 
capability as a teacher, but Lavinia insisted that 
it was too cold to learn to play on the grand 


120 


Cis Martin. 


piano, and little Marg proved the truth of her 
words by catching a cold. We had only one 
fire in the house, and that was in the cooking 
stove that Uncle Ben and Aunt Sabina had 
kindly left behind them. 

Mother did not seem to gain any strength 
after the fire. She and I still kept the post 
office, and she continued, when the snow would 
allow her to get about, to visit the mountain 
people when they were sick. I accompanied 
her frequently on these visits, and by and by 
she occasionally allowed me to go alone. The 
gristmill woman declared that I was as good a 
doctor as mother, and, indeed, I really think I 
did some very wonderful things; but people 
have a strange feeling upon them and become 
very capable when other people rely upon them, 
and so I sewed up Johnny Holly’s chin and ban- 
daged it in a way that brought upon me the 
rapturous praise of the mountain people; in- 
deed, even the preacher spoke of the matter one 
Sunday in the little schoolhouse. I began to 
think at that time that if ever I were obliged to 
work for my living, I would learn to be a trained 
nurse. 

The next time that mother was ill enough to 
go to bed father sent for the doctor. Tom, who 
had been sitting out on the fence in the cold, 
rushed into the house to tell me that the doctor 
was galloping up the road. 


Separation. 


121 


We were all worried about mother being- sick, 
and Jack at this period helped in the house like 
a girl. Jack was desperately fond of mother, 
although he was headstrong and hard to man- 
age. So he remained about the house in order 
to please mother, and he even got out his books 
in the evening. 

After the doctor was gone father called me 
into the sitting room, or parlor — we never knew 
exactly which to call it. I sat down on the seat 
of the grand piano with a giddy feeling creep- 
ing upon me. 

Father’s face was white, all but his cheeks, 
and they were flushed. He walked up and down 
in the narrow .space before the piano. 

“Cecelia,” he said at last, “ the doctor is of 
the opinion that your mother ought to go back 
to New York.” 

“O, father,” I cried; “are we going?” I 
could not keep back the gladness in my voice. 

“Cissy,” said my father, “ don’t you think I 
would take you all back if I could ? ” 

As I sat there on the stool of the grand piano 
I made a calculation of the cost of the tickets to 
New York. It was a good deal of money. And 
after we were back home we would have to 
live. Father would be obliged to teach a pub- 
lic school, perhaps, as Aunt Lavinia and grand- 
papa had long ago arranged, but where would 
we get the money to purchase the tickets and to 


122 


Cis Martin. 


live until father could obtain even the position 
of public school teacher? In the State of New 
York people were not in the habit of lending 
their houses. No, of course we could not all go 
away from the Tennessee mountains. 

“ But you will send mother ? ” I asked, look- 
ing up at father. 

“Your mother will never be willing to go 
without the children,” he said, and turned away 
from me. 

“ Nor without you, father,” I said. 

“I cannot go,” returned father, “that is out 
of the question ; but if Kirk would come down 
and we could make certain arrangements for the 
approaching spring, why, business would look 
up and I certainly could manage something. 
Your mother wprries too much among these 
people ; she is killing herself with these peo- 
ple.” Again my father walked restlessly up 
and down in the limited space before the grand 
piano. “Cissy,” he said, in a kind of despair, 
“what am I to do about your mother ? ” 

“Father,” I said, “I will go and write the 
truth, the whole truth, to grandpapa.” 

My father sighed and walked on to the window, 
and I got off the piano stool and went out the 
room. 

Aunt Lavinia answered this letter also. She 
said that the “ truth ” had terribly shocked both 
herself and grandpapa ; that they had had no idea 


Separation. 


123 


of the poverty and struggle we were under- 
going. She said that grandpapa wanted my 
mother and the three little girls and Tom to 
come to them directly, and a draft was inclosed 
in the letter to defray the expenses of the jour- 
ney. “ Of course,” Aunt Lavinia’s letter went 
on, “ your grandfather and I should both prefer 
that your entire family would return to the 
North; but if you are determined to remain 
with your father, Cecelia, we will not urge you 
to do anything that you consider contrary to 
duty, but it seems to us that the lumber business 
is a very poor one. We are now of the opinion 
that it is just as well your father did not carry 
out his intention of sending Jack to college, 
and sincerely hope that the boy is at work, even 
though it is only physical work to be found in 
the mountains. Your grandfather himself re- 
ceived very little education ; he went into a store 
at the age of twelve and worked steadily to the 
front. A college education often unfits a man 
for business. ” 

We had a difficult time trying to get mother 
to acquiesce to our plans. Father urged her to 
accept grandpapa’s invitation for the sake of the 
children, pointing out how different I might 
have been had I been denied those three last 
years at school. He said that Lavinia and Mattie 
were at the age to receive strong impressions, to 
have their habits formed by the people around 


124 


Cis Martin. 


them. Father did not say very much about 
Tom and little Marg-. It seemed to me that it 
would have been kinder in grandpapa to have 
arranged for Jack to go with mother and be sent 
to school, and to have left Tom and little Marg 
with father and me ; but even in my thoughts I 
could not be very hard on grandpapa, for, after 
all, he was extending a great kindness to us. 

Father asked Jack and me to go into mother’s 
room together and try to persuade her into going 
to New York. Mother burst out crying when 
she saw us. She was very weak and nervous, 
and the doctor said that she must not be moved 
until the weather grew warmer. 

“ Mother,” I said, “ Jack and I have come to 
tell you that we will take very good care of 
father while you and the children are away.” 

“ Yes,” said Jack, hoarsely, “ and father will 
take very good care of us.” 

“ I can find no peace away from you,” faltered 
mother. ‘ ‘ I will be thinking all the time of the 
sawmills and of the big dam and of father 
planning to get rich, considering that he owes 
it to us to get rich, and of my boy running wild 
on the mountain. 

“ Jack,” I said, tell mother that you are not 
going to run wild on the mountain any more.” 

Then Jack went down on his knees beside 
the bed and put his arms about mother with a 
great sob. “I’ll do whatever you ask me to. 


Separation. 


125 


mother,” he said as soon as he could speak. 
“I’ll study my lessons all the time ; I’ll say them 
to Cissy if you wish.” 

“My dear boy,’’ murmured mother, “my 
good boy.” 

“ I will get ready for college,” promised Jack. 
“ I’ll never give up until I go to college. I will 
do whatever you wish, mother, if you will only 
pay a visit to grandpapa.” 

Then mother, with her arms around Jack’s 
neck, said that she would go to New York. 

Father was very cheerful after the matter was 
settled. He talked to the children about our 
old home, telling the little girls that grandpapa 
would send them to the school where Cissy had 
graduated, and he bade Tom study hard so that 
he might very shortly attend the college where 
his father had once taught Latin and Greek. 
He told college stories every evening until Tom’s 
eyes were as round as saucers, and little Marg 
finally asked him why, if he liked the college so 
much, he had ever left it. 

I could not help wondering over father’s 
cheerfulness. He really seemed as if a great 
load were lifted from him, as if he rejoiced over 
the fact that mother and the children were going 
away. Yet surely he would miss little Marg 
coming to meet him, and Lavinia’s extravagant 
stories, and Mattie going to sleep with her head 
upon his knee, and Tom’s curious questions. 


126 


Cis Martin 


And would not life be a dreary blank to him 
without mother ? Would father like it if Jack 
and I were going too? 

When the spring opened and the streams began 
to rush and rumble over their stony beds and 
the birds sang out among the tender green of 
the bushes, my sisters and Tom lost their desire 
to go to grandpapa’s and become refined and 
civilized. A mountain girl related to Mattie 
that she knew where “sang ” grew in the moun- 
tains, and that over at the creek store and down 
at the station it was bought at two dollars and 
a half a pound. It seemed to my little sisters 
and Tom that here, at last, was a fortune in the 
mountain, and that just when they were ready 
to grasp it fate was ruthlessly forcing them 
away. 

“It’s prettier in the Tennessee mountains 
than it is up at grandpapa’s,” said Lavinia. 
“Mattie and me and little Marg want to hunt 
sang and sell it over at the creek store.” 

“I don’t care nothin’ about college in New 
York,” howled Tom. “ I want to go to school 
again to Jake Mudd.” 

But mother and I talked together hopefully 
about the future. When she and the children 
were gone Jack would study his lessons and I 
would help him prepare for college. We prophe- 
sied that father would not wish long to remain 
in the Tennessee mountains with mother up in 


Separation. 


127 


New York. ‘ ‘ And I will get your grandpapa to 
look around and find something better for father 
to do than teach public school,” said mother. 
I allowed myself to hope with mother, though I 
knew very well that father had not yet relin- 
quished the idea of making a fortune in the 
timber lands of the South. But I could not un- 
derstand how father could be so very cheerful 
over the thought of parting with mother and the 
children. 


128 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The Little Schoolmistress* 

I THOUGHT a great deal about Aunt Lavinia 
as I helped mother and the children make 
ready for the journey North. I wanted 
Aunt Lavinia to be pleased with the children, 
and yet I was aware that in innumerable ways 
“ little Marg and them folks ” would shock her. 
As for grandpapa, he would be delighted with 
everything that little. Marg said or did, find ex- 
cuses for Lavinia on account of her pretty face, 
become devotedly attached to Mattie, and do 
his best to answer Tom’s questions comprehen- 
sively and at length. But both Aunt Lavinia 
and grandpapa would be in a state over the 
change in mother. They would think hard 
things of father, and Aunt Lavinia, perhaps, 
would speak out her thoughts. In that, how- 
ever, I was wrong. Aunt Lavinia was too truly 
filled with pity at my mother’s altered appear- 
ance to find it in her heart to add to her troubles 
by condemning father. 

Yet it was no wonder that I was afraid of 
what Aunt Lavinia might say when I, father’s 
own daughter, was marveling over his high 
spirits. It seemed almost as if this were the 
pleasure trip that father had planned as he and 


The Little Schoolmistress. 129 

I stood under the shelter of the rude tent on the 
mountain while the rain poured from the skies 
into the big dam, not the real thing that it was — 
mother and the children going back to the town 
in New York because the doctor had declared 
the change necessary for mother, and because 
grandpapa had been kind enough to offer a 
home to her and the little girls and Tom, and 
had sent a New York draft to defray expenses. 

I helped to dress mother and the little girls, 
and I tied Tom’s necktie and tucked in the 
laces of his New York shoes and kissed his 
solemn little face ; and then I gave everybody 
good-bye out in Uncle Ben’s lot and watched 
the carriage roll away. I could not go to the 
station to see mother and the children off ; 
father and Jack could do that. Father’s cheer- 
ful voice would be ringing in my mother’s ears 
as she entered the little car on the narrow 
guage, and father’s cheerful face would be the 
last thing she would see out the window. Poor 
mother, she would feel sure that she was leaving 
her dear ones in the Tennessee mountains only 
for a little while. How could it be otherwise? 
How could father and Jack and I live away from 
mother? I sank down on the doorstep of Aunt 
Sabina’s little house and cried as if my heart 
would break. 

What a difference little Marg and them folks 
would make at grandpapa’s ! Of course, at first, 

9 


130 


Cis Martin. 


Aunt Lavinia would be kept busy correcting the 
girls and Tom, but after a while they would 
learn all the ways of civilization and cease tell- 
ing tales about the days in the Tennessee moun- 
tains and their teacher, Jake Mudd, and their 
friends. Aunt Sabina and Uncle Ben and Mis’ 
Slade. 

When Jack a,nd father returned from the sta- 
tion I noticed that father’s cheerfulness had en- 
tirely deserted him. He sat down on the porch 
bench and looked across at the rushing streams 
before and behind the ruins of the big hotel. 
He looked strangely old and white as he sat 
there with his hands on his knees, his head bent 
forward. Then I knew that his cheerfulness 
had been assumed in order that mother might 
not understand how hard it was for him to part 
with her and the children. 

I felt as if I ought to say something comfort- 
ing to father, but I resumed my seat in the 
doorway and did not utter a word. Father 
looked at me and smiled drearily. 

“ Well, Cissy,” he said, “ this has been a sad 
day in the Tennessee mountains.” 

“ Grandpapa and Aunt Lavinia will take good 
care of mother,” I said, trying in vain to speak 
bravely. “It is the best thing that could be 
done.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” said father, sighing. 
Then he spoke vehemently : “That is what I 


The Little Schoolmistress. 


131 


mind, Cecelia ; your grandfather and your Aunt 
Lavinia will be doing what I ought to do. I 
am nothing but a useless old dreamer. I have 
dreamed all my life. I should have remained 
in New York and gone to work at a clerk’s sal- 
ary; it would have been better. Your grand- 
father is right about many things. I have 
wasted my life dreaming.” 

“ Father,” I said, and I rose and stood beside 
him, “grandpapa is not right about you. Why, 
the people say that you have done wonders here 
in the mountains ; you have given work to so 
many people ; you have not been wasting your 
life. I do not care if you never succeed ; yoil 
are not a useless dreamer.” 

“ I am an old man. Cissy,” father said, strok- 
ing my hair. ‘ ‘ I have not done well by my 
family. What will your Aunt Lavinia say to 
my keeping you here in the mountains when 
she learns the true state of affairs from little 
Marg and the others ? What will she say about 
Jack ? ” 

“Jack is all right, father,” I said ; “ Jack will 
never lose faith in you.” 

Then that strange red • color mounted to my 
father’s cheeks. “ If I could see Kirk,” he said ; 
“ if he would even answer my letters in a more 
satisfactory manner, things might right them- 
selves yet. Cissy, ” he added, looking at me wist^ 
fully, “ I do not know what to make of Kirk.” 


132 


Cis Martin. 


Half an hour later father was riding his horse 
to the sawmill. 

I found Jack in the lot back of the house 
leaning against the fence, with his hat tilted 
over his eyes. I had thought that he, too, had 
gone to the sawmill; but my brother was al- 
ready beginning to keep his promise to mother. 

“Jack,” I said, going up to him and laying 
my hand on his shoulder, ‘ ‘ did you want to go 
with mother too ? ” 

I was unprepared for the abrupt way in which 
Jack jerked himself out of my friendly and af- 
fectionate grasp. “No,” he said, “I’m no 
pauper.” Then he turned and faced me, his 
black eyes scanning my face. “ You wanted to 
go, Cecelia Martin,” he said. 

“ Jack, I didn’t,” I protested. “Somebody 
has to stay with father. I need never have come 
to live here if I had not wished to do so, and I 
will never leave the Tennessee mountains until 
father goes too. I wish we all could go back 
home, but especially do I wish that father could 

go-” 

‘ ‘ There is money to be made in timber, ’ ’ said 
Jack, glancing down at his boots; “only it 
takes money to make money, and Kirk is acting 
queerly. Father was talking to me on the way 
from the station. Cissy,” added my brother, 
‘ ‘ nobody in the whole world wants me to be 
educated more than father, not even mother, 


The Little Schoolmistress. 


133 


and I am going to be educated, I don’t care 
what Aunt Lavinia and grandpapa have to say 
against it. I could have learned something 
from Jake Mudd, but I didn’t try. If Jake 
Mudd can educate himself, why, I can educate 
myself too — that is, if Kirk goes to acting mean 
with father.” 

I looked at Jack with pride in my eyes. 

‘ ‘ There’s a strange tale going about down at 
the station,” said Jack. 

‘‘What is it ? ” I asked, suddenly frightened. 

“They say down at the station,” answered 
Jack, “that a lumberman is going to bring a 
steam mill into the mountains. They say he is 
examining timber on the Roan. Of course it 
may not be true ; he may be looking after some- 
thing else.” 

“ Bring a steam mill into the mountains ? O, 
Jack!” I cried. 

“ I don’t know whether it’s true or not,” re- 
peated Jack, “ but I think that father believes 
it is true. They say down at the station that 
the tract with the red oaks on it has been taken 
off the market.” Then my brother’s sharp ears 
caught the sound of horses’ hoofs on the moun- 
tain road, and he stared in the direction of the 
sound. “Who are those men, I wonder!” he 
exclaimed. “ What are they about ? ” 

There were three men on horseback, two of 
them well dressed, the other a man from the 


134 


Cis Martin. 


station. They left the road and crossed the lot 
in which were still standing the chimneys of the 
big hotel. 

“They’re the steam-mill people,” said Jack. 
“John Lunn is showing them about. I wish 
they’d keep off our lot.” 

The men paused beside the ruins of the big 
hotel, and we could hear John Lunn’s voice ex- 
plaining about the fire. Then they turned and 
stared at the little house in which we were liv- 
ing. After that they crossed the stream and 
rode straight into the mountains. 

“ They are looking at the timber,” said Jack, 
vindictively. ‘ ‘ Father never bought up the 
right back of the hotel. There are some fine 
chestnuts and maples in there. Of course it’s 
true about the steam sawmill.” 

“Will it hurt father very much. Jack?” I 
asked. “Will it ruin his prospects?” The 
truth is I did not believe that father’s prospects 
were very bright at the best, and I was not in 
despair as I put the question, remembering that 
mother was going to get grandpapa to find 
something suitable for father to do in New 
York. If father’s prospects in the Tennessee 
mountains were ruined, he would be willing to 
go to New York. 

“ It will just kill father,” said Jack. 

In the month of June we could hear the chest- 
nuts falling in the mountains back of the hotel. 


The Little Schoolmistress. 


135 


and about half a mile from Aunt Sabina’s house 
was set up the steam sawmill of the enemy, for 
in this light Jack and I regarded Mr. Chris- 
topher Ford. The mountain people came from 
miles around to view the new machinery, and 
were amazed at the whistle sounding out in the 
woods. I could not bear the sound of the whistle 
and the falling trees. 

Father talked very little on the subject of 
Mr. Christopher Ford and the steam sawmill. 
Once I heard him tell Jack that Kirk had made 
a mistake by not buying up the right to the 
timber all about; that it was no use running 
things on a small scale. The following week 
father bought the timber-right of a large tract 
of land twelve miles away, in North Caro- 
lina. 

“ I think,” said Jack, ‘‘that Kirk must be 
stirred up at last. “Perhaps, after all, father 
will be able to run the new men out. ” 

The mountain people were on the side of the 
water mills. They had come to the mountains 
first, they said; and then, besides, father gave 
work to the mountain men, and the company, 
represented by Mr. Christopher Ford, brought 
their hands with them. 

‘ ‘ The mountuns is fillin’ up thick and fast 
with furriners,” said the woman from the grist- 
mill. 

I had up to that time been amused at being 


136 


Cis Martin. 


called a foreigner, but I did not like to be classed 
with Mr. Christopher Ford. 

The sawmill company engaged the services 
of one man in Roan. Jake Mudd accepted the 
position of paymaster and bookkeeper. He 
said that he could make more money in this way 
than by teaching the mountain school, and he 
wanted to go to college by the time he was 
twenty. I could not help thinking hard- things 
of Jake Mudd. 

There had been a time when I had dreaded 
the idea of mother and me giving out mail to 
the summer visitors who were to fill the hotel 
which the Northern man had given up building ; 
but I do not believe it would have been as hard 
a thing to do as to give out the mail to the men 
at the steam sawmill. They received a great 
many letters, and now and then I was called 
upon to write an answer. I was thereby forced 
to write to the families of these men glowing 
accounts of the magnificent timber and the 
wealth of the company. 

One morning, after I had written a letter of 
this description, Mrs. Slade called to see me. 

“Laws! Cis,” she said, having thoroughly 
exhausted the subject of the latest foreigners, 
‘ ‘ who’s gunno teach down to the school- 
house ? ” 

“ How do I know. Mis’ Slade ? ” I returned. 

“ Jake Mudd give it the slip mighty sudden,” 


The Little Schoolmistress. 137 

said the gristmill woman, with a laugh. ‘ ‘ Seems 
to me he ought ’a’ found another teacher before 
he went to work at the steam sawmill. I ain’t 
never sent Dolph to school yit, though he’s 
plumb past the age, but I ben thinkin’ about 
startin’ him in August.” She looked at me 
steadily. “’Pears to me, Cis,” she said,. “ that 
you got a powerful good head on you. I reckon 
mebbe you’d make a better teacher’n Jake 
Mudd. Laws ! he ain’t ben to school nowhars 
but right yer in these mountuns, and you ’tended 
school away up thar in New York State. Why 
don’t you teach over yon in the schoolhouse, 
Cis ? ” 

I regarded Mrs. Slade wonderingly; I had 
never thought of such a thing as teaching school 
in Jake Mudd’s place. 

The gristmill woman put her feet on the 
rounds of the chair upon which she was sitting, 
and embraced her knees with her arms. “Cis,” 
she said, emphatically, “ it’d be a good thing for 
you, and it’d be good for Jack too. You and 
Jack must git powerful played out holdin’ school 
to yourselves. I thought I never would hear of 
anything funnier than that thar school you 
started in the big hotel with little Marg and 
them folks. Once I seen yer maw ringin’ the 
bell and I most died a-laughin’. But laws! you 
and Jack a-keepin’ school is funnier’n that.” 

^‘Mis’ Slade,” I said, “I wish you had 


138 


Cis Martin. 


thought about my teaching in the mountain 
schoolhouse before, so that I could have passed 
the examination.” 

‘‘Thar ain’t nobody got the school,” said 
Mrs. Slade, “and laws! Cis, I reckon you’re 
smart enough to teach without ary examina- 
tion.” 

‘ ‘ But I would have to have the papers to 
sign,” I said, “ and they never appoint a teacher 
until she has passed an examination.” 

“O, you could git the papers, Cis,” said Mrs. 
Slade. “ Mr. Koonce down to the station would 
let you have the papers without ary examina- 
tion. If you say you’re gunno teach school over 
yon to the schoolhouse, thar ain’t nobody else 
that’ll git the school. Why, the men would run 
arybody else out. The folks that was to that 
thar taffy pullin’ to the hotel and heered you 
play the big fiddle, they’d run ary other teacher 
plumb Out the schoolhouse if you was jest to 
say you’d have the school, Cis. Cis, please, 
mom, say you’ll have the school.” 

“I’ll have it if I can get it. Mis’ Slade,” I re- 
turned. 

Mrs. Slade heralded the news around the 
mountain that Cis Martin said she would have 
the school if she could get it, and the very next 
afternoon, to my intense astonishment, Mr. 
Koonce, the magistrate, rode up from the station 
bringing me the papers to sign. It was cer- 


The Little .Schoolmistress. 


139 


tainly a most unbusiness-like arrangement, but 
the Roan people seemed delighted that I was 
going to teach school in place of Jake Mudd. 

“Jack,” I said, “ I will be able to pay our 
debt at the creek store, for I will make a good 
deal of money when I teach school.” 

Jack declared that the debt at the creek 
store could wait a while ; that it was nearly all 
profit anyway. 

But I was in a debt-paying mood. “I will 
settle the account at the little flour mill too,” I 
went on; “and. Jack, if Jake Mudd intended 
saving money enough to send himself to col- 
lege, why can’t I save enough to send you to 
college? ” 

“Pshaw!” said Jack, “I won’t have you 
spend your money on me.” 

“ I will do what I please with my money,” I 
said, laughing. “ The very first thing that I do 
will be to send Semiramis to a publisher. ” 

Jack’s face lighted. 

“ Just suppose some day. Jack, you and I can 
tell father that Semiramis is accepted by a pub- 
lisher! Will not that be. bliss? ” I cried. 

“Yes,” returned Jack, slowly and thought- 
fully, “ that would be bliss.” 

But it was Jack and not I who sent Semiramis 
the first time out of the Tennessee mountains. 

^ ‘ I want you to fix father’s novel up and for- 
ward it to the best publisher in the United 


140 


Cis Martin. 


States/' lie said to me one evening. “ I found a 
piece of sang in the mountain and sold it down 
at the creek store.” 

We wrapped Semiramis up in brown paper 
and weighed it and stamped it, and wrote upon 
it the address of the best publisher in the United 
States. The boy who carried the mail cried out 
when he lifted the bag, ‘ ‘ My ! but you got a 
heavy mail, Cis ; them fellers at the steam saw- 
mill write a heap o’ letters.” 

The mail boy’s words did not cause me to feel 
bitter against the steam sawmill men ; I was 
already dreaming of the success of Semiramis. 

In speaking of my future days in the moun- 
tain schoolhouse I said to Jack that I hoped he 
would help me to keep order, and that he would 
set a good example for the boys. 

“ None of them will give you much trouble,” 
said Jack; “but I don’t believe mother would 
like to think of your teaching school here in the 
mountains. The schoolhouse smells of snuff.” 

“ On Sunday, yes. Jack,” I said, “when all 
the people are there at church ; but it hardly 
smells of snuff every day.” 

“ It does,” said Jack, “it smells of snuff all 
the time ; the snuff is in the boards. ” 

On the morning of the first school day Jack 
went to the little flour mill for a bag of flour and 
I started out alone, keeping to the road. The 
schoolhouse was about half a mile from Uncle 


The Little Schoolmistress. 141 

Ben’s. I wore one of my plainest dresses, but 
when I came to the little river and stood upon 
the bridge looking -down at my image in the 
water, I flattered myself that I did not at all 
resemble a mountain school-teacher. True, 
Jake Mudd was good-looking enough, but he 
was a young man ; I was thinking about women 
teachers. Long ago Aunt Lavinia had said that 
the time might arrive when I would be obliged 
to teach school for a living, and I had rebelled 
against the thought. I was going to teach 
school in order to pay the debts at the creek 
store and the flour mill and to send Jack to col- 
lege, and I felt very proud as I looked at my 
image in the water. Perhaps I was thinking, 
too, of some of the flattering things Mrs. Slade 
had said about my “ powerful good head ” and 
about my making a better teacher than Jake 
Mudd ; and it may be that a strange pleasure was 
upon me owing to the fact that I, Cis Martin, 
was allowed to teach the mountain school with- 
out having passed an examination, and that if 
any other teacher, who had passed an examina- 
tion and acquired the school in a legitimate way, 
had appeared upon the scene, even though I had 
done nothing more than acquiesced to the plan 
proposed to me by Mrs. Slade, the men who 
had attended the taffy pulling in the big hotel 
would have ‘ ‘ run her out ” with scant ceremony. 
Even though the schoolhouse smelled of snuff 


142 


Cis Martin. 


every day and Sunday too, I walked toward it 
that morning with joy in my heart. 

As soon as I appeared within sight of the 
schoolhouse the heads of my pupils were thrust 
out of the windows. I was glad that my dress 
almost touched the ground and that my hair had 
grown long enough for me to twist into a knot. 
The door of the schoolhouse stood wide open. 
I was just about to step upon the little platform 
outside when two dogs rushed from within, 
barking furiously. 

All my life I have been afraid of dogs, and 
these two dogs, rushing at me so unexpectedly, 
yelping and barking, frightened me terribly. I 
retreated from the steps backward, looked in 
vain for a fence, and then got upon a stump, 
holding my skirts about me as if I were in the 
room with a mouse. 

“Children,” I cried, loudly, “come and call 
off your dogs.” 

‘ ' The children were piling out of the school- 
house. They looked at me and giggled and 
stood back like the men had stood back when 
father had ordered them to help at the fire. 

“Children,”! repeated, imperatively, “call 
off these dogs.” 

Then a little girl said, ‘ ‘ Yer, purp ! yer, purp ! ” 
and ran after the little woolly dog, but the little 
dog evaded her and dashed itself against the 
stump. 


The Little Schoolmistress. 


143 


The big dog, excited by the barking of the 
little dog, was standing back from the stump 
with his hair on end all over his back and neck. 

“ O, please call off the big dog!” I cried, 
pleadingly. 

Then one of the large boys exclaimed in a 
tone of quiet enjoyment, “Laws! teacher is 
skeered ! ” and he advanced leisurely and caught 
the big dog by the back of the neck and shook 
him. 

“ He won’t hurt narybody,” he explained. 

“Tie him up,” I ordered. “I will not get 
off this stump until that dangerous beast is tied 
up.” 

Again the boy grinned. “ I ain’t got no rope, 
mom,” he said. 

“Then hold him,” I ordered, “and make 
somebody hold the little dog too. Little dogs 
can bite as well as big ones.” 

At my second command another boy skipped 
blithely forward and pouncing upon the little 
dog, picked it up and held it in his arms. 

Then I got off the stump and went into the 
schoolhouse. 

The children followed me into the school- 
house, and also the dogs, who stretched them- 
selves out quietly enough under the benches. 
But I was determined that dogs should not 
attend my school. I was very sorry for what 
had occurred, for I knew that the story of teacher 


144 


Cis Martin. 


standing on the stump, holding her skirts about 
her, would be spread over the mountain before 
nightfall and that the people would be looking 
for more fun than enough ” from Cis Martin 
in the capacity of teacher. 

School in the mountains opened at eight 
o’clock in the morning. At about half past 
nine on that first morning the gristmill woman 
arrived with Dolph. Dolph had firm hold of his 
mother’s skirt, although he was not ordinarily 
timid, and he looked very red about the eyes. 

Laws!” cried Mrs. Slade, seating herself on 
one of the school benches as if she had come to 
church and shoving Dolph over her knees, ‘ ‘ if 
I ain’t had a time with Dolph 1” 

I went across the room to speak to her. I 
held an open book in my hand. I suppose I 
said, “ Good morning, Mrs. Slade!” with a cer- 
tain dignity upon me ; anyway, the woman 
from the gristmill burst out laughing. 

“ You’re jest killin’, Cis,” she said, as soon as 
she ceased laughing. “ I wish I was little 
enough to come to school to you. I certainly 
would enjoy watchin’ you give out the spellin’, 
and I think I’d die when you got to whippin’ 
the boys.” 

I don’t know why it was, but the boys all smiled 
openly at this. As for whipping boys, I never 
did believe in it. 

‘‘Dolph yer,” said Mrs. Slade, “was hid 


The Little Schoolmistress. 


145 


around to the back o' the gris’mill fer more’n 
an hour before I spied him out and caught him. 
Laws! Dolph,” she said, turning to that indi- 
vidual, “over yon is Bill Williams. Bill’s 
littler’n you ; go long cross and set with him. 
Teacher don’t bite.” 

Bill Williams smiled invitingly upon the new, 
scholar, and Dolph climbed back over his 
mother’s knees. Then Mrs. Slade whispered 
broadly, with her hand to her mouth, “I jest 
want to see you a minute outside the school- 
house, Cis.” 

“ I want to tell you ’bout Dolph,” explained 
Mrs. Slade, when we stood together outside the 
schoolhouse. ‘ ‘ He wasn’t much in fer cornin’ 
to school, but I want him to ’tend school real 
bad, and I know if arybody kin teach him ary- 
thing, you kin. The old man’s ben spilin’ Dolph 
straight along, and he told him this mornin’ if 
he was him and didn’t keer to go to school, he’d 
run away and hide from his maw. So Dolph 
hid behind the gris’mill, and I racked round fer 
an hour before I could find him. When I got 
hold o’ him in the end and fetched him along I 
told him that you was gunno be mighty good to 
him and learn him to read and to sing, and that 
every evenin’ you was gunno give him five cents 
fer ’tendin’ school. 

“ O, Mis’ Slade!” I expostulated. 

Mrs. Slade laughed, reached into her pocket, 
10 


146 


Cis Martin. 


and brought out a handful of nickles>v “ Yer’s 
this week’s/' she said, and winked at me gayly. 
“ I told Dolph,” she continued, “ that he wasn’t 
to let on to arybody that teacher was payin’ him 
fer tendin’ school. You’d hev a time if all o’ 
them was to come fer their pay. You'd git 
plumb broke tolerable soon, Cis. Dolph ’ll 
think,” she added, with a laugh, “that he’s 
gittin’ his lamin’ and his pay too. 

“Aren’t you helping to spoil Dolph, Mrs. 
Slade? ” I asked, hesitating about accepting the 
trust of the nickles. 

“ Laws ! Cis,” she answered, “ of course I am ; 
but I want him to git some schoolin’. He ain’t 
nine years old ; ’taint no harm fer a little feller 
like that to think the teacher pa)^ him fer 
’tendin’ school.” 

That afternoon Dolph Slade received his five- 
cent piece. I had forgotten about it until I left 
the schoolhouse and found him waiting for me on 
the platform. He had sent his comrade. Bill 
Williams, on ahead, explaining that teacher 
wished to speak to him. 

Jack did not put in an appearance at the 
mountain schoolhouse that day or any other. 
He had decided as he rode back from the mill 
that he preferred having his lessons at night. 


Jake Mudd. 


147 


CHAPTER IX. 

Jake Mudd* 

F ather had set up a sawmill at a place 
called Bean Creek over in North Carolina, 
and he did not get to Roan very often. 
It would have been desperately lonely for me at 
that time if I had not accepted the position of 
teacher at the mountain school. Jack was ac- 
tually at work, taking charge of the sawmill 
below the big dam. My brother was growing 
very fast; he was quite as tall as I. He kept 
his promivSe to mother, and every evening studied 
and recited his lessons in the kitchen of Aunt 
Sabina’s little house. 

Of all my pupils at the mountain school I 
liked Dolph Slade the best. It may have been 
on account of the five-cent piece which Dolph 
received on the sly every afternoon ; anyway, 
he became very much attached to me, and, as is 
only natural, such attachment on the part of a 
pupil is reciprocated by the teacher. When 
Dolph was home he was by no manner of means 
an obedient boy; indeed, his mother confided 
to me, smilingly, that he didn’t mind “ary 
word ” she or the old man said to him. But at 
school he was a most exemplary character. I 
did not understand the depth of Dolph’s affec- 


148 


Cis Martin. 


tion for me until one day he came up to my 
chair and said, “ Teacher, I wish you had shot 
that thar wolf instead o’ maw.” 

All the boys and girls called me teacher, and, 
somehow, although it is not a remarkably eu- 
phonious name, it, nevertheless, was decidedly 
preferable to Cis. 

Although the schoolhouse was only half a mile 
away from Aunt Sabina’s by the mountain road, 
there was a still shorter path, called a bridle way, 
leading to it. This bridle way ran through a 
thick growth of laurels that lapped and twined 
together about five feet above a person’s head. 
Above the laurels moaned and sighed the tall 
spruce pines. I was walking along the lonely 
bridle way to the schoolhouse early one morning 
for the purpose of going over a difficult example 
in arithmetic before the children arrived. I did 
not like to do sums at night for fear that Jack 
would think I was not a competent teacher and 
become discouraged. The truth is, I had dis- 
covered that Tom was right when he declared 
that Jake Mudd knew more arithmetic than I. 
Indeed, Jake Mudd must have known a great 
deal of arithmetic, for some of the large boys 
were considerably advanced. I do not be- 
lieve that teaching was my forte, for I could 
not help being sorry over the advancement 
of the large boys. I am afraid that in my 
heart I most sincerely wished that they were 


Jake Mudd. 149 

all working in the first part of the arith- 
metic. 

As I hurried along the bridle way, with my 
thoughts centered upon the difficult example 
that would be put upon the board that day, I 
was suddenly surprised by the appearance of 
three men in the path before me, crawling on 
their hands and knees. They had guns with 
them, but no dogs. I knew they could not be 
hunting game, or they would have dogs. Then 
the blood all rushed away from my face. These 
men must be hog thieves. The people about 
Roan had already lost several fine, fat hogs, and 
they were on the lookout for a mountain bear. 
But Jack and Aunt Sabina were both of the 
opinion that the hogs had been stolen by men. 
The men had come out of the laurel on the one 
side of the path, and they disappeared in the 
laurel on the other without noticing that anyone 
had seen them. I waited a few minutes, and 
then ran swiftly on to the schoolhouse. 

Never had the schoolhouse looked so miserable 
to me as it did that morning. The benches 
were sitting crooked on the floor. My chair 
appeared a forlorn thing there on the narrow 
platform. Back of the platform were two short, 
broad windows, resembling the windows of a 
blacksmith shop. The room was sealed — that is, 
lined with boards. The light through the short, 
broad windows fell upon the reading stand that 


150 


Cis Martin. 


on Sunday held the preacher’s Bible and on 
other days served me as a desk. I wished 
heartily that there was a lock on the door as I 
pushed it to after me. 

Hog thieving was one of the few crimes that 
met with severe punishment in the Tennessee 
mountains. The people vastly preferred to let 
a man go loose who had shot another man in a 
quarrel than to acquit a man who in cold blood, 
had stolen another man’s hog. It was a peni- 
tentiary offense to steal a hog. I felt morally 
certain that I was in the same thicket with men 
who contemplated the perpetration of a peni- 
tentiary offense, and I condemned the temerity 
that had led me to accept the gristmill woman’s 
offer of the mountain school. 

However, I had accepted the mountain school, 
and if I wished to keep ahead of the big boys, I 
must go to work at the difficult example. I got 
my slate, pencil, and arithmetic, and sat down 
on one of the benches, putting my slate and 
book upon the bench also. I was afraid to have 
my head even with the window lest the hog 
thieves might see me. At first the figures 
swam before my eyes, and then I ciphered in a 
feverish hurry. What if the children came in 
and found teacher “ doing sums” like one of 
themselves? They would give it out all round 
the mountains. The people would wonder at 
Cis going to the schoolhouse early in the morn- 


Jake Mudd. 


ISl 


ing to do sums. My slate was filled with figures, 
but this was a very difficult example. Suppose 
I could not succeed in getting it right! Sup- 
pose James Cook were to turn about from the 
board and call for my help ! What would I do 
then? Why had father gone to Bean Creek, 
leaving no one at Roan but Jack and me? 
Father would have gone over all the difficult 
examples with me, and I would give up trying 
to keep my ignorance from my own people. 
Of course Jack would be surprised. I was 
seventeen years old, and I had graduated 
at a first-class school for young ladies in the 
State of New York. The tears came into my 
eyes, and I put my head down upon my slate. I 
felt as if it were impossible for me to save my- 
self from disgrace. If I could not work out the 
example, I could not explain it to James Cook 
or anybody else, and I was not fit to teach the 
mountain school; it would be only right and 
proper for me to resign the school. I imagined 
that I heard the mountain people saying : ‘ ‘ Laws ! 
Cis she couldn’t do the sums. Furriners is quare 
folks. Jake Mudd never went to school nowhars 
but in these yer mountains, and Cis she gradu- 
ated up yon in the vState o’ New York, but Cis 
she couldn’t do the sums.” But uncomfortable 
as these thoughts were to me, they were fol- 
lowed by thoughts still more torturing. Now 
the people were praising me. ‘ ‘ Cis, ” I could hear 


152 


Cis Martin. 


them say, ‘ ‘ she’s got a powerful good head on 
her. If arybody kin teach the children ary thing, 
it’s Cis Martin.” My poor, proud heart beat 
painfully in my bosom ; my tears fell fast. 

I had intended to spend my school money to 
such wonderful advantage. I was going to pay 
the debt at the creek store and the debt down 
at the flour mill ; I was going to save money to 
send Jack to college. When I thought of Jack 
I sobbed aloud, forgetting all about the hog 
thieves. 

Then a voice at the open window said, 
“Cis!” and then Jake Mudd entered the 
schoolhouse and said, “Cis!” close beside me, 
and just for an instant laid his hand upon my 
head as if I were one of his former pupils in 
distress. “What’s the matter, Cis?” he 
asked. 

I sat up instantly. I was ashamed and an- 
gry, and I felt as if I hated Jake Mudd. 

He had seen the arithmetic and the slate and 
understood my difficulty at once, but I said 
quickly, ' ' There’s nothing at all the matter, 
only I — ” I couldn’t finish my sentence, but I 
rose and was going to put the arithmetic away, 
and I wished that I could think of some excuse 
to make for coming to the schoolhouse so early 
in the morning. 

I had forgotten the slate. Jake Mudd picked 
it up from the bench. 


Jake Mudd. 


153 


^‘That’s a hard example, Cis,”he said; “I 
had a time over it once.” 

I turned and looked at him with doubt in my 
eyes. 

I think I tried it four times.” 

I had tried it only twice. “ Did you get it?” 
I asked. 

“ I got it in the middle of the night,”, said 
Jake Mudd, with his pleasant laugh. 

Thereupon he sat down upon the schoolroom 
bench, put the slate on his knee, and went to 
work ciphering vigorously. I retired to my 
reading stand and gazed out the back windows. 
I was wondering if my eyes looked as if I had 
been crying very much. 

In a very little while Jake Mudd came up 
with the slate. 

** Here’s where the difficulty is,” he ex- 
plained, rapping his pencil against the middle 
of the example. ‘‘ I daresay you made the 
same mistake I did.” 

My self-esteem was returning. I looked at 
the slate. How quickly Jake Mudd had worked 
out the example ! I became honest in my grati- 
tude. ‘ ‘ Arithmetic is easier for you than for 
me,” I acknowledged. “ I don’t believe it 
would ever have come to me in the middle of 
the night.” 

It might have,” he returned. “ You didn’t 
give it the chance,” and he laughed again. 


154 


Cis Martin. 


Then standing there in the rude, snuff-smell- 
ing little schoolhouse with Jake Mudd beside 
me, laughing, there came to me the thought of 
the fire at the big hotel, which Jake Mudd 
didn’t get to, because he had gone down to the 
station, and of the taffy pulling, and of Lavinia 
and Mattie giggling and saying to each other 
that they wondered if Jake Mudd knew that I 
knew more Latin and arithmetic than he. I 
blushed all over my face. Perhaps he had 
heard and understood those foolish whisperings, 
and now he alone on the mountains was aware 
of my ignorance of arithmetic. He could say to 
the people if he wished: “ I caught Cis Martin 
crying in the schoolhouse. She was lying on 
one of the benches with her head on her slate ; 
she was crying because she could not work an 
example.” But I knew instinctively that Jake 
Mudd would never tell. Then I thought of 
how different everything was from that night 
of the taffy pulling. I no longer lived in the 
big hotel, but in Aunt Sabina’s little mountain 
farmhouse, I and Jack and father. We had 
lost the distinction of being the only foreigners 
on Roan Mountain, for the place was alive with 
men belonging to the new company. Over in 
the large tract of red oaks, that were a fortune 
in themselves, the company had set up another 
steam sawmill. Then I remembered that Jake 
Mudd was in the employ of the enemy. I 


Jake Mudd. 


155 


reached out my hand and took the slate from 
him and put it on my reading stand, saying 
“ Thank you ” in a very distant manner. 

“You aren’t mad at me, Cis? ” asked Jake 
Mudd. 

“ I cannot he friends with anyone who works 
for the steam-mill men,” I returned. 

“ But is that quite fair and square, Cis? ” he 
questioned. 

^ ‘ I don’t care whether it’s fair and square or 
not,” I retorted. “ I am a daughter of Doctor 
Martin, and that company came in here and 
bought up land that father contemplated buy- 
ing. Was that fair and square? ” 

“It was business,” said Jake Mudd. 

My lips curled scornfully. 

“ And father liked you,” I said; “ he always 
spoke well of you. He liked you and admired 
you and wanted Jack to go to school to you.” 

“ I like and admire your father,” said Jake 
Mudd. “ No man ever came into these moun- 
tains that I like as well as your father.” 

I laughed contemptuously. 

“ You mean I like the new company better? ” 

To this question I deigned no reply. 

“You’re mistaken there, but I couldn’t have 
kept the new company out if I had tried.” 
Here I smiled and Jake Mudd reddened, but he 
went on, speaking rapidly. “No, Cis, I couldn’t 
have kept the new company out if I had tried. 


156 


Cis Martin. 


Neither can I keep them from prospering. 
They have plenty of money to back them, and 
they’re bound to succeed. There was nothing 
at all dishonest in them snatching their oppor- 
tunity when they saw it. They offered me a 
good position, and I would have been a fool not 
to accept it. I have to think about myself. I 
want to go to college by the time I am twenty. 
Cis,” he added, persuasively, “you ought to 
understand that business is business. The lum- 
ber men are finding out the Tennessee moun- 
tains. It was utterly impossible for your father 
to be the only one.” 

“ If when father first came here,” I said, “ he 
had found another man, a man who had been 
working faithfully for four years and would be 
able to make a fortune if his partner could be 
made to understand the necessity of action, do 
you think that he would have brought in steam 
engines and ruined the other man’s prospects? 
I can tell you right here, Jake Mudd, that 
father wouldn’t have done it.” 

“ I don’t believe he would,” said Jake Mudd, 
‘ ‘ but there’s hardly another man living w^ho 
wouldn’t.” 

We were silent for a while, and then Jake 
Mudd said : “I have often wondered at Doctor 
Martin for coming into these mountains, and 
I’m glad that Mis’ Martin and the children are 
out of it. It seems to me as if your father is 


Jake Mudd. 


157 


altogether in a wrong position, and I don’t think 
much of that partner of his up in New York.” 
Then he asked me how Jack was coming on. 

“Jack told me,” he explained, “that you 
were getting him ready for college.” For the 
first time he did not look steadily at me, but out 
of the window at the back of my reading stand. 
“ Jack’s got a good head on him ; he just needs 
to apply himself.” 

“Yes,” I acquiesced. 

“Cis,” said Jake Mudd, with a laugh that 
had a ring of bashfulness in it, ‘ ‘ isn’t it kind 
of foolish for you to be mad at me? ” 

“O, I am not angry with you,” I vSaid, dis- 
tantly. “Of course there is no reason in the. 
world for me to be angry with you. I suppose 
it is true, as you say, that business is business, 
only I don’t care very much for business.” 

“ But you care for Jack? ” 

“ Yes,” I cried, “ of course I care for Jack.” 
It seemed to me that Jake Mudd was taking a 
little too much upon himself when he questioned 
my affection for Jack. 

‘ ‘ And you want to keep on teaching the moun- 
tain school, Cis. You want to do it for Jack’s 
sake and for your father’s sake,” he said. 

Yes, certainly, I did, but I could not see that 
it was anything to Jake Mudd. However, I 
nodded my head in assent. 

“Then, Cis,” he said, “you’ll let me help 


158 


Cis Martin. 


you with the arithmetic? I’ve been through the 
book three times. It’ll teach Jack some, too, to 
go over the examples in the evening.” 

Why,” I asked, “ did you ever go to work 
for Mr. Christopher Ford ? ” 

Jake Mudd laughed. “ If I hadn’t, Cis,” he 
returned, ‘‘ you couldn’t be teaching the moun- 
tain school.” 

I laughed too, but not heartily ; and after a 
while I said yes, if he was willing to go over the 
arithmetic with Jack and me, I should be very 
glad to have him do it. He said that it would 
be a benefit to himself as well, keeping arith- 
metic in his mind; but I did not credit this 
assertion, for I had never seen a person work 
out an example so quickly. 

Then he began to ask me questions about my 
school, and I told him, with a fresh terror upon 
me, of the three men I had seen crawling across 
the bridle way. “ They carried guns,” I said, in 
a whisper, “ but they had no dogs.” 

Jake Mudd gave a prolonged whistle. 

While we were talking about the men a small 
boy entered the schoolhouse andlaying his primer 
on a bench, approached us and stood listening. 
This was my favorite pupil. Jake Mudd be- 
lieved the men were hog thieves, and he advised 
me to keep to the road, so as not to be frightened 
again. When we finished talking I reproved 
Dolph Slade for listening. 


Jake Mudd. 


159 


But Dolph Slade was a practical youngster. 
At the noon recess he quitted the premises. He 
was seen going down the bridle way ; and it was 
generally concluded that he had departed for 
home. But at four o’clock I found him waiting 
for me on the platform. 

‘‘ I cannot give you your five cents to-day, 
Dolph,” I said. ‘‘You cannot play truant and 
be paid for attending school.” 

“I don’t want no five cents,” said Dolph. 
He looked up at me with shining eyes. 
“Teacher,” he whispered, “I done found 
some’n in the woods. I know what them thar 
hog thieves was about.” 

“ You, Dolph! ” I cried, laughing. He was 
so little. 

“Yes, mom,” said Dolph, unheeding my 
laugh. “ Come right along down yer, teacher.” 

He went swiftly down the bridle way, and I 
followed. He turned in the direction from 
which the men had come out of the thicket, 
parted the laurel and crept under. Perhaps 
some of Dolph’s courageous spirit took posses- 
sion of me, or it may be, that I was afraid to be 
left alone ; anyway, I continued to follow. 

“Shh! ” said Dolph. We had been creep- 
ing stealthily along for a hundred yards or more ; 
now we stood up. We were in a diminutive 
clearing. My pupil was a queer little figure. 
His trousers reached to his ankles; his cheeks 


160 


Cis Martin. 


were as red as apples. Thar ! ” he exclaimed, 
pointing" a finger. In the leaves was a large 
hog. It got upon its feet grunting ; it was tied 
to a tree by a rope fastened around one of its 
hind legs. 

“ Them hog thieves is fattenin’ it,” explained 
Dolph. “ Don’t tell nobody you seen it, teacher. 
Me and Jake Mudd’ll see about layin’ fer them 
fellers.” 

We crept back through the laurel, parting the 
branches with our hands. It was a relief to come 
out upon the bridle way. Dolph accompanied 
me to the fence of Aunt Sabina’s lot ; then he 
broke into a run, and I knew that he was going 
to tell Jake Mudd about his find in the woods. 

Jake Mudd came to our house that very even- 
ing, and he and Jack and I began our arithmetic 
lessons. I don’t know what else to call them, for 
we all three worked out the examples on our 
slates. I thought it strange, but I was not sorry 
thkt Jake Mudd had us start out at the example 
directly following that difficult one he had done 
for me in the morning. 

Jack and I talked about Jake Mudd’s relations 
to the steam sawmill company, and Jack said 
that nobody could in reason blame a mountain 
school-teacher for accepting a better position 
when it was offered to him. I think Jack was 
glad to have some one go over the arithmetic 
with us. 


Jake Mudd. 


161 


We learned about the capturing of the hog 
thieves through Jake Mudd, who was one of the 
men who laid for them. After Dolph Slade’s 
good fortune in discovering the hog watch and 
ward were kept over the prize for about a week. 
During this time the hog was fed regularly. 
Jack and I did not understand why the man 
who came to feed the hog wasn’t pounced on, 
but Jake Mudd explained that feeding a hog was 
no crime. Not until the hog was taken off by 
the three men and put into a pen were the 
thieves jumped upon. They were tried in the 
creek store and later on sentenced to the peni- 
tentiary for a term of three years. The woman 
at the gristmill was wonderfully proud of Dolph. 

' ‘ He’s a mighty little feller to have a hand in 
layin’ the law on hog thieves,” she said to me. 
‘ ‘ But laws ! Cis, I most died a-laughin’ when he 
told me about you not givin’ him his five cents 
until you seen the hog.” She would inquire of 
her small son whenever he was with me, ‘ ‘ Dolph, 
Cis give you the five cents when she seen the 
hog, didn’t she? ” 

Dolph Slade was terribly down on hog thieves. 

I would lay fer ’em all winter, if I had to,” he 
declared, ‘‘ but I’d ketch ’em.” 

Business is business of course. The sending 
of Semiramis to a publisher, asking him please 
to examine the manuscript with a view to bring- 
ing it out on the royalty plan, was purely a mat- 
11 


162 


Cis Martin. 


ter of business, and the returning of Semiramis 
by the publisher with a printed slip, thanking 
the sender, but regretting that the story did not 
meet the present needs of the house, was purely 
a matter of business. 

I had imagined that the best publisher in the 
United States would be vastly astonished at re- 
ceiving a manuscript from the Tennessee moun- 
tains, and that his curiosity being excited, he 
would bestow more than the usual attention 
upon Semiramis. I did not believe that anyone 
could bestow attention upon Semiramis and thep 
return the manuscript. 

Jack was furiously angry when Semiramis 
came back to Roan. He stamped all over the 
lower floor of Aunt Sabina’s little house, de- 
claring that men were cheats and liars, and that 
there was no fairness to be found on the face of 
the earth. 

‘‘It is a good novel,” he said. “You know 
that it is a good novel. Cissy ? ” 

“Yes, Jack,” I returned, mournfully, “it is 
a wonderfully good novel.” 

“I suppose,” said Jack, despondently, “we 
didn’t send it to the right publisher. Cissy,” 
he added, with a little hope rising within him, 
“ I wish you would read it to Jake Mudd.” 

So I read Semiramis aloud to Jake Mudd every 
evening after the arithmetic; and I forgave 
him fully for working at the steam sawmill, for 


Jake Mudd. 


163 


no one could possibly have appreciated Semira- 
mis more than he. He praised father’s mind, 
and wondered more and more at him being con- 
tented to live in the Tennessee mountains. He 
could not understand how any sane publisher 
could return Semiramis with a message that it 
didn’t meet the present needs. 

‘ ‘ When a publisher has the chance to accept 
a story as good as that,” said Jake Mudd, “he’d 
better take it. He’ll be sorry for it some day 
if he doesn’t.” 

This prophecy was very pleasant, even though 
it was connected with the troublesome business 
of selling a historical novel. 

That night I dreamed that I heard little Marg 
saying, in her positive, high-pitched voice, “ If 
Jake Mudd says it’s good, then it is good,” and 
I knew that she was speaking of Semiramis. 


164 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER X. 

Jack Seeks His Fortune* 

T hose arithmetic lessons in the evening 
saved my reputation as a teacher in the 
mountain school. It was wonderful how 
clear everything appeared when Jake Mudd ex- 
plained it, reviewing the examples again and 
again, so that none of us would forget. 

My talent for telling stories had given me a 
hold over my little sisters and Tom ; my hold 
over the mountain children consisted in the 
promise of a tree at Christmas and a school 
entertainment. Everybody was to ‘ ‘ say a 
piece ” at the entertainment and everybody was 
to receive a gift from teacher off the tree. The 
anticipated Christmas tree suggested new ideas 
to my pupils. The large girls asked me how it 
would be if they were to give presents to one 
another and hang them on the tree. In their 
own minds it would be charming. 

“We could write the names on them, teacher,” 
said my most promising girl pupil, “and you 
could read them out.” 

So it was arranged that the tree was to be 
liberally furnished with Christmas gifts. 

I knew by the manner in which the large 
boys spoke of the tree and giggled behind my 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


165 


back that teacher was to come in for a fair 
share of the gifts. 

“What is a Christmas present, teacher?” 
Dolph Slade inquired, coming up to me during 
the afternoon session and stationing himself 
alongside my reading desk. 

All the children on the benches leaned eagerly 
forward to hear my answer. 

“Is it something to eat, teacher?” said 
Dolph. 

“A Christmas present,” I returned, “may 
be anything at all ; it may be a pretty little card, 
or it may be a bookmark, or it may be a stick 
of candy.” 

Dolph grinned appreciatively, and the rest of 
of my pupils sat back in the benches. 

Dolph Slade remembered another question by 
the time he reached his seat. He turned about 
and put it to me. “Teacher,” he inquired, 
‘ ‘ when we say our piece do we stand on the 
platform like you and the preacher ? ” 

To this question I answered “Yes,” and my 
pupils giggled convulsively. 

The Saturday after I received my first quar- 
ter’s salary I mounted old Bay and rode off to 
the creek store. I was going to ask for our bill 
and pay a part of it. 

There was quite a number of men in the 
store, and I called Bill Pinner out, saying that 
I wished to speak to him on business. 


166 


Cis Martin. 


Bill Pinner climbed the counter and came out 
upon the store porch. He seemed very much 
astonished when I asked to see our account. 

‘ ‘ So you want to know what money you fur- 
riners is owin’, Cis?” he said. “What’s that 
fer ? The doctor ain’t thinkin’ about doin’ his 
dealin’ down yon to the station ?” 

“No,” I answered ; “we simply wish to pay 
a part of our debt.” 

“ That so ? ” said Bill Pinner. He was lean- 
ing against one of the porch pillars. He took 
out a plug of tobacco and leisurely bit off the 
end. “ Whar’s the doctor, Cis ?” he asked. 

I replied that father was over in North Caro- 
lina, at a place called Bean Creek. 

“I thought he was,” said the creek store- 
keeper. ‘ ‘ I hadn’t heered nothin’ of him re- 
turnin’ to these parts. How’s he cornin’ on 
over yon ? ” 

I said that I believed the timber in North 
Carolina was very fine. 

“ You bet,” said Bill Pinner. “ The timber’s 
fine everywhars in these yer mountuns. But I 
calc’late it takes a powerful lot o’ money to git 
it out. I reckon them fellers runnin’ the steam 
mill air backed up by a powerful lot o’ money.” 

Not caring to discuss the owners of the steam 
mill with Mr. Pinner, I reminded him that I 
was there for the purpose of paying part of our 
store bill. 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


167 


“ But you said, Cis, that the doctor was over 
yon in North Caroliny,” said Bill Pinner, re- 
garding me scrutinizingly. “ How, in the name 
o’ common sense, is the doctor gunno settle the 
bill yer at the creek store when he’s cross the 
mountuns in North Caroliny ? I’m in no big 
hurry for a settlement nohow. I kin wait for a 
settlement till the doctor walks in the store him- 
self. I hear that you’re gittin’ along fine teach- 
in’ the school. Is the folks around invited to 
that thar entertainment, Cis ? ” 

The men in the Tennessee mountains were 
not noted for politeness. Mr. Pinner settled 
himself comfortably on the upper step of the 
porch, though I remained standing. “ I’m 
thinkin’,” he went on, “ that I’d like first rate 
fer to tend that thar entertainment up yon to 
the schoolhouse.” 

Thereupon I invited Mr. Pinner to the chil- 
dren’s entertainment. 

You got yer pay the other day, didn’t you, 
Cis ? ” he questioned further. 

I flushed, but said yes, I had received my 
pay. 

‘‘Wall,” said Bill Pinner, “it’ll take some 
little time fer to fix up that thar account, and I 
ain’t in ary hurry fer a settlement. I’m willin’ 
to wait, if necessary, till the water mill comes 
out ahead o’ the steam mill. The doctor’s got 
a powerful head on him. I was up thar in the 


168 


Cis Martin. 


mountun to see the big dam burst.” The creek 
vStorekeeper laughed loudly. ‘ ' That thar was a 
fine shuckin’ and taffy pullin’ you folks give up 
to the hotel, Cis,” he continued. ‘'I don’t 
know as these mountuns ever seen a better 
time’n that. ’Twas a pity the hotel burnt down. 
I reckon as some o’ the women wasn’t keerful 
about puttin’ the fire out in the cook stove. 
How’s Mis’ Martin and Tom and them gittin’ on 
since they’ve went back to New York State ? ” 

They are all very well,” I answered. 

Yer maw did a power o’ work fer sech a 
little bit of a woman,” remarked Mr. Pinner, 
crossing his legs comfortably. I reckon now 
if she could ’a’ collected her doctor’s bills, she’d 
made right smart o’ money yer in the Tennessee 
mountains. You’re a pretty good doctor yer- 
self, Cis.” He looked up at me with admiring 
eyes. ^‘I’m glad you’re gittin’ something out 
o’ the school-teachin’ sence the doctorin’ don’t 
pay you nothin’. As fer the account yer at the 
creek store, it kin stand on the books till the 
doctor comes along himself and asks fer it.” 

I suppose I should have felt grateful to Bill 
Pinner for refusing to allow me to pay at least 
a part of father’s account, but I did not; I 
hated with all my heart to be in debt at the creek 
store. I don’t believe I even said thank you as 
I left him sitting there on the porch step. 

“ Mind, I’m cornin’ to that thar school enter- 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


169 


tainment, Cis,” he called after me as old Bay 
splashed through the waters of the creek. 

I next went to see the man at the flour mill. 
I do not think that anywhere in the world is 
there an odder little mill than the one to which 
I rode that day on the back of Aunt Sabina’s 
bay horse. It consisted of a wooden building 
not more than twenty feet square. In the cen- 
ter of the building was a rude aisle, and in the 
middle of the aisle were the flour bins. The 
apparatus of the mill was situated in a sort of 
loft. It was a regular old-fashioned, diminutive 
burr mill. The miller laughed at the roller- 
process flour, declaring that he himself made 
the sweetest flour to be found in the whole 
United States. 

John Hill was very much attached to the fur- 
riners. Every one of the children, from Jack 
down, had separately been enticed to plunge a 
hand in the apparently placid water passing 
from the wooden race on to the mill. The sur- 
prise of the youthful foreigner when his hand 
threatened to get away from him was joy to the 
miller’s heart. John Hill had roared tremen- 
dously when in this way he also fooled me. 

The mill was not in full working blast that 
day I called to And out the amount of our flour 
bill. The miller was resting in the doorway. 

Whar’s Jack? ” he inquired, thinking that I 
had com^ for a bag of flour. 


170 


Cis Martin. 


“ Jack is looking after one of the sawmills,” 
I said ; then I asked him for the bill. 

’Tain’t so awful much, Cis,” he said, “ and 
I don’t know as I’m in any hurry ’bout a settle- 
ment.” 

But I was in a hurry if John Hill wasn’t. 
“ I have the money with me,” I said. “I want 
to pay a part of the bill to-day.” 

‘‘You do?” said Mr. Hill. “ How’re you 
cornin’ on teachin’ school, Cis? ” 

“ I’m coming on very well,” I said. 

“ Pay you pretty good? ” inquired the miller. 

“Yes,” I answered, “ it pays pretty well.” 

“ Yer paw ain’t got back to these parts yet? ” 

“ No,” I said, “ father is still in North Caro- 
lina.” 

“ Heered from little Marg and them folks 
lately? ” 

I explained at length that I heard from my 
people often, and that they were all in excellent 
health. 

“ They like it up thar? ” inquired John Hill. 

I said that they liked it very well ; they had 
lived there before. 

“ I reckon,” said the miller, “ that it’s a fine 
country, but these yer Tennessee mountuns is 
good enough fer me. Yesterday, Cis, I turned 
out five barrels o’ flour. I told you I could do 
it. I’m feered, though, I worked Fred too hard ; 
be ^in’t got in yet this tnornin’, There’s great 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


171 


talk in favor o’ these yer roller-process mills, 
but I ain’t tasted the flour yet that’s as sweet as 
what’s made in yon. Mis’ Martin she ’lowed it 
was sweet as a nut. You ain’t got no fault to 
find with my flour, have you, Cis? ” 

“ Your flour is very good, Mr. Hill,” I said, 
‘‘ but I’ll be very much obliged to you if you’ll 
make out our account.” 

Now? ” demanded John Hill, in astonish- 
ment. “You’re in a mighty big hurry, Cis. 
I got to have time to make out an account. I 
kin tend the mill all right, but when it comes to 
makin’ out accounts I reckon you’d be a heap 
quicker at it’n me. You see, I made certain 
arrangements with yer paw,” he went on, “ and 
I ain’t a man to go back on my word. I ain’t 
gunno push fer a settlement. When the doc- 
tor’s ready to settle it’ll be time enough fer me 
to make out the account.” 

I turned old Bay about and rode slowly away. 
These people understood that I was trying to 
pay some of our debts with my school money, 
and they would have none of it. I did not feel 
grateful to them in the least. 

“ Cis! ” the miller’s voice called after me. 

I pulled the bridle of the bay horse. 

“You tell little Marg and them folks that I 
made five barrels o’ flour yesterday. You needn’t 
say that you found me settin’ restin’ in the door- 
way and that Fred hadn’t showed up by eleven 


172 


Cis Martin. 


o’clock. You jest tell ’em that I got through 
with the five barrels by the time it was plumb 
dark. Little Marg and them folks was always 
good ones to give around a piece of news.” 

I thought of little Marg and them folks as I 
rode slowly back to Uncle Ben’s little house. 
They were coming on finely up at grandpapa’s. 
All of them were going to school. Aunt La- 
vinia had written me a lengthy letter praising 
each one in turn. My mother, Aunt Lavinia 
said, looked like a different person since she 
had left the Tennessee mountains. She was 
out driving every day. Grandpapa loved to 
have her with him ; it made it seem like old 
times. Tom was Aunt Lavinia’s favorite. She 
wrote that while she and grandpapa, as a rule, 
did not believe in a high education for a boy, still 
Tom was so exceedingly bright and did so well 
at school that they had determined to send 
him to college. “Tom has already made up 
his mind about his future career,” Aunt Lavinia’s 
letter ran. ‘ ‘ I wish I could tell you exactly how 
he confided this important matter to me, but he 
has requested that I allow him to add a post- 
script to my letter, in which he will tell you 
himself.” 

Tom’s postscript to Aunt Lavinia’s letter was 
as follows : 

‘ ‘ Dear Cissy : I am going to be a doctor when 
I am a man ; not a doctor like father, but like 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


173 


mother and you, and I am going back to the 
Tennessee mountains and cure the people of the 
milk sickness. Tom.’' 

I had gone through some very amusing expe- 
riences as doctor since mother and the children 
had left the mountains. The people, understand- 
ing that I was to be found five days in the week 
at the schoolhouse, took advantage of my school 
hours and brought their sick babies to visit me. 
Sometimes a voice outside the window would 
call me to ‘ ‘ step to the door, please, mom, and 
look at Jimmy’s tongue,” or give direction as to 
what Mary should do for her sore eyes. 

I felt certain that mother could not be really 
happy at grandpapa’s, and that she was bother- 
ing herself about father and Jack and me, won- 
dering how she could manage to get us out of 
the Tennessee mountains, to which dear little 
Tom was planning to return in his manhood to 
cure the people of the milk sickness. It must 
have been exceedingly hard for mother to listen 
to Aunt Lavinia’s plans regarding Tom and 
think of Jack growing to be such a good-sized 
boy. But even if grandpapa had invited Jack 
to live with him and go to school. Jack would 
not have accepted the invitation; indeed, he 
would have offended everybody by proclaiming 
himself “ no pauper.” 

The sawmill on the mountain was not flourish- 
ing under Jack’s management. Jack was tall 


174 


Cis Martin. 


and wStrong, but he was only fourteen years old, 
and was rather inclined to be “ bossy." 

“He ain’t like the doctor, Jack ain’t," the 
gristmill woman said to me, “ and he ain’t like 
Mis’ Martin. Jack Martin ain’t like ary person 
in this world but jest Jack Martin, and he’s 
bossy as ever he kin be." 

Mrs. Slade admired my brother’s bossiness, 
but the men working at the sawmill seriously 
objected to it. When, therefore, the steam-mill 
company wanted more hands and decided to hire 
mountain help the men, who in all probability 
would not have left the big dam sawmill under 
father’s management, left it under the manage- 
ment of Jack. 

“Let them go," said Jack. “I don’t care. 
There wasn’t any money in the thing for father 
anyway ; there wasn’t any money in it for any- 
body except Kirk, and I am tired of making 
money for Kirk. I can make money for myself 
if I wish to." 

One evening after I had finished giving out the 
mail a mountain girl came to our little house. 
She was a very odd-looking girl, tall and stooped, 
with a face like an old woman’s. She wore a hat 
with a vivid feather in it, and her dress con- 
sisted of a short sack of brilliant blue and a 
scarlet skirt. Notwithstanding her bright color- 
ing she was barefooted. She entered the room, 
bobbed her head to me, and said “ Howdy! ’’ 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


175 


“ Howdy! ” I returned. 

“ Ben givin’ out the letters?” she asked. 

''Yes,” I said. " Did you expect a letter?” 

My visitor said, "No, mom,” complacently 
took a seat, put her bare feet upon the round of 
the chair, and regarded me fixedly. I noticed 
that she carried a bundle of clothes. 

' ' Them folks over yon at the steam mill gits 
a lot o’ letters, don’t they, Cis? ” she asked. 

I did not know this girl, but evidently she 
had seen me at the schoolhouse on Sundays. 
Everybody around the mountains had seen the 
furriners, and never failed to address them 
familiarly. 

" Heerd from Mis’ Martin lately? ” asked the 
girl. Of course she knew mother. "Is she 
doin’ well up thar? ” 

I answered her questions shortly. In truth, 
I was not much taken with my visitor. I did 
not like the expression of her face, her gaudy 
hat, and her brilliant dress. I was not pleased 
with the manner in which she continued to re- 
gard me closely, as she sat there with her naked 
feet upon the round of the chair. By and by 
she asked, ' ' Want a gal? ” 

So that was what she had come for. I felt 
thankful that I was not obliged to accept her 
services. " No,” I said, politely, " I do not want 
a girl.” 

" Jack said you did,” she returned. 


176 


Cis Martin. 


Jack said I wanted a girl? ” I asked, incred- 
ulously. “ Where did you see Jack? ” 

“I didn’t see him,” answered my visitor. 
“Moll she seen him. Jack told Moll you 
wanted a gal, and she said she’d come over and 
stay with you. I come ’stead o’ Moll.” 

I could not understand. “ Do you mean 
Moll Wender? ” I questioned. Once Moll Wen- 
der lived with us at the hotel while Kit went 
home to nurse her grandmother. She was a 
tidy, pleasant girl. If we had wished a girl, it 
would not have been extraordinary for Jack to 
have engaged the services of Moll Wender ; but 
we did not wish to keep a girl. Indeed, our 
meals were not much trouble to prepare, and 
Jack always helped me. He said often that he 
would like to camp out and cook ; he was really 
a very good cook for a boy. 

“Yes, ’twas Moll Wender,” said the girl. 
“ She told Jack she’d come over and stay with 
you, but I come in her stead. Jack he give this 
letter to Moll to give to you.” 

“ Who are you ” I asked. 

“ I’m Liz Moon,” said the girl. 

I took the letter from Liz Moon and went into 
the kitchen, closing the door behind me. 

Jack said in this letter that he had tried very 
hard to keep his promise to mother, and that he 
was not going to break it altogether. He had 
also tried to be a help to father. “ But there 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


177 


isn’t any money for father in the sawmill busi- 
ness,” explained my brother, “ and so there is 
no use in the world for me to waste my time 
fooling about it. Of course there is money 
made, lots of it, but father’s has to go into the 
improvements, while Kirk’s goes into his own 
pocket. I have every reason to believe that Kirk 
is laying a trap for father. I know he blames 
father for letting the steam-mill men get posses- 
session of the red-oak tract. I am fourteen years 
old, and I am as strong as a man. There is no 
reason in the world why I cannot make money 
if I try. Grandpapa made me mad when he said 
that I ought to be at work on the mountains, but 
he was right. I can work as well as anybody ; 
but father and mother want me to be educated, 
and I want to be educated myself, and I will go 
to work and earn enough money to send myself 
to college. When you write to mother you can 
say that Jack is hard at work getting ready for 
college. It will not be a lie. You need not tell 
mother that I have left Roan Mountain. I send 
this letter to you by Moll Wender. She is a 
good girl, and she says she wants to live with 
you. Don’t worry about me any; I can take 
care of myself. I hated to see you making 
money and hear you talking about spending it 
upon me.” 

Jack’s postscript was the only part of the let- 
ter that showed signs of agitation. It was 
12 


178 


Cis Martin. 


scrawled hurriedly, and ran thus: “Try and 
send Semiramis to some more publishers. Sooner 
or later it is bound to succeed.” 

So everybody had refused to participate in the 
money that I made teaching the mountain school. 

I went into the other room and told the girl 
to take off her hat, explaining to her that my 
brother Jack had gone away from home for a 
while, and that she was to remain with me until 
his return. I determined, of course, to find out 
where Jack was and induce him to return and 
keep his promise to mother. I felt confident 
that I would not be able to stay on in Aunt Sa- 
bina’s little house with father off at Bean Creek 
and Jack dear knows where. 

I bade Liz prepare supper, and surprised her 
very much by adding that I didn’t want any ; 
then I went out into the lot and waited for Jake 
Mudd. He would come along the mountain 
road, walking briskly, thinking of the arithmetic 
lesson in the little room, the three of us sitting 
around the table; and he would find Jack gone 
and nobody in the house but me and Liz Moon. 
Then a vague hope came to me that perhaps 
Jack’s whereabouts might be known to Jake 
Mudd. 

I could hear the sound of sawing from the 
direction of the steam mill ; of course Jake Mudd 
would not be along for hours ; yet in my excite- 
ment I continued looking for him. We do 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


179 


strange tilings in this world, and singular things 
happen. While I was watching the mountain 
road in the hopes of seeing Jake Mudd coming 
for the arithmetic lessons fully three hours 
before the time, a horse galloped down the road 
in the opposite direction, was turned into the 
lot, and the next minute Jake Mudd had thrown 
himself from the saddle. 

I went to meet him impulsively. I wanted 
him to speak to me, and yet I dreaded to hear 
his words. 

‘‘ Cis,” he said, ‘^there’s been an accident up 
at the steam sawmill.” 

I looked at him dumbly, my mind still filled 
with Jack. 

The engine rolled over on the side, and a 
man was caught underneath. He’ s pretty badly 
hurt, I’m afraid, and his ear is ’most torn off. 
I’ve sent for the doctor, and I’ve come for you.” 

Liz Moon was standing in the door listening. 

‘ ‘ Get some bandages and things and a 
needle,” said Jake Mudd, we must hurry.” 

Mechanically I gathered together the neces- 
sary articles, and then I went up to the enemy’s 
sawmill on the horse behind Jake Mudd. 

The injured man was lying on the ground 
groaning; the hands from the sawmill were 
gathered about, looking at him ; no one was 
offering any assistance. In order to give the 
foreigner his due, I must explain that Mr. Chris- 


180 


Cis Martin. 


toplier Ford and the men he had brought in with 
him were at that moment absent in the red-oak 
tract. The men looking on at Joe Smith were 
his brother mountaineers. 

‘‘Thar’s Cis,” I heard some one say; “if 
arybody kin do him ary good, Cis kin ; she’s as 
good at doctorin’ as Mis ’Martin.” 

It was growing dark in the woods. Jake 
Mudd lit a lantern and held it over the wounded 
man. I went on my knees beside him. My 
hands were not very steady as I examined the 
torn and bleeding ear.” 

“You sewed up Johnny’s chin beautifully, 
Cis,” said Jake Mudd, encouragingly. 

Then a great braveness came to me, and I set 
to work. I sewed up the ear and bandaged it, 
and then I bandaged the man’s arm, and after 
that I gave orders that he be carried to the 
nearest house. The doctor, arriving early the 
following morning, declared that I had saved 
Joe Smith’s ear and that I had skillfully band- 
aged the wounds. He also said that it would 
be well for me to keep on attending the case for 
a week or two. 

When Jake Mudd took me back home that 
evening he said, as he helped me off the horse : 
“You’re a powerful good doctor, Cis. There 
was nothing to do but to come for you. You’re 
not mad at me? ” 

“ No,” I said, “ I’m not mad.” 


Jack Seeks His Fortune. 


181 


“ But you’re scared, Cis,” he persisted. 
‘ ‘ You’re trembling. You oughtn’t to be scared ; 
you took hold of Joe Smith’s ear like you were a 
born practitioner.” 

“ I’m not frightened about Joe Smith,” I said, 
“ I’m frightened about my brother, about Jack.” 

Then Jake Mudd dispelled that one faint hope 
in my bosom. He turned about him, inquiring, 
“ Why, where is Jack?” 


182 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER XI. 

A Christmas Present* 

tTAKE MUDD went into the house with me, 

\ and I told him about Jack. 
qJ He shouldn’t have gone away and left 

you,” he said, and I could tell by his voice that 
he was angry with Jack on account of me. 

‘‘Where do you think he has gone?” I 
asked. 

But Jake Mudd hadn’t any idea. 

“What kind of work could Jack do?” I 
asked. It seemed to me that a person who had 
lived all his life in the Tennessee mountains 
ought to have some knowledge of the kind of 
work that a runaway boy would be apt to seek ; 
but Jake Mudd shook his head and said, “ Jack 
should have thought about you.” 

“ Perhaps he has gone over into North Caro- 
lina,” he said after a while. “ Your father may 
have some idea in what locality to look him 
up.” 

To this I replied, weeping, that I did not be- 
lieve Jack would look for work anywhere near 
father, and that I did not know who was going 
to tell father that Jack had left Roan. 

“ I’ll tell him,” said Jake Mudd. “ I’ll take 
to-morrow off and ride over to Bean Creek.” 


A Christmas Present. 


183 


“ And you’ll find Jack ? ” I pleaded. 

“No harm is coming to Jack,” said Jake 
Mudd. “ I’ll find out some time or other where 
he is. You see, Cis,” he added, “ I can’t take 
more than a day off at the sawmill. I’d lose my 
place.” 

“ O, I wish that I were a man!” I cried. 

Jake Mudd exasperated me. “ Well, I don’t,” 
he said. “ I’d a heap rather have you a girl.” 

The next day he rode over to Bean Creek, car- 
Jack’s letter to father. He brought me 
back a letter. Father, too, seemed to be think- 
ing more of me, safe in Aunt Sabina’s little 
house, than of Jack dear knows where. I felt 
bitter in my longing to discover the where- 
abouts of Jack, but I was determined that 
mother should never know that my brother had 
failed to keep his promise. 

Wondering over the different kinds of work 
that a boy would be likely to look for, there 
came to me with a shudder the thought of the 
iron mines. I had never seen an iron mine, 
but I had often heard Jack and Jake Mudd talk- 
ing about the shaft and the cars and all sorts of 
miserable and dangerous things. Father had 
at one time been interested in the stories of the 
mines, and mother had been afraid that he 
would give up the lumber business and turn his 
attention to iron. “The lumber,” she said to 
me, “is at least on top of the mountains.” 


184 


Cis Martin. 


So my heart sank within me as I thought of 
the iron mines and of Jack, big and strong, and 
determined to make money to educate himself. 
I did not dare to read the county paper atten- 
tively lest one of the ill-printed headings would 
herald an accident in a mine. 

As the weeks went by and nothing at all was 
heard of Jack, I became very cool in my man- 
ner toward Jake Mudd. Father and all of us 
had been very kind to him, and he must know 
how worried mother would be if she knew that 
Jack had run away and that nobody was trying 
to find him. I wished that I had refused to 
pull taffy with him that night we had the taffy 
pulling in the hotel. He did not come to our 
house in the evenings. As far as the arithmetic 
was concerned it did not make any difference, 
for I was ahead of my pupils and had taken 
copies of all the difficult examples; besides, 
Christmas was very near at hand. 

Assuredly fate was not kind to the Martin 
family; particularly was fate unkind to me. 
Here had I remained willingly in the lonely re- 
gion of the Tennessee mountains in order to 
look after father and help Jack prepare for col- 
lege. Father was over at Bean Creek, with no 
one to look after his comfort; Jack was prob- 
ably working in an iron mine, forgetting his 
arithmetic ; and I was living in Aunt Sabina’s 
house with Liz Moon. It was bad enough that 


A Christmas Present. 


185 


Bill Pinner and the miller should refuse to re- 
ceive payment out of my school salary, but that 
this money was of no use to the people whom I 
loved so dearly was a sore blow to me. Still I 
went on day after day teaching school, and when 
I went home in the evening there was Liz Moon 
to keep me company. 

There was great excitement at the mountain 
school owing to the fact that the time of the 
Christmas tree and entertainment was fast ap- 
proaching, and I entered into the preparations 
with my heart far away. 

I had sent out Semiramis, according to Jack’s 
directions, and it had been returned so very 
promptly that I was forced to believe the pub- 
lisher had neglected to read the manuscript. 
However, I forwarded it to another publisher 
in the next mail. 

It is astonishing, but when a story, especially 
a good story like Semiramisj is off at a pub- 
lisher’s the person who sent it cannot help in- 
dulging all sorts of beautiful dreams. Even in 
the midst of my trouble about father and Jack 
I dreamed beautiful dreams in regard to Semir- 
aniis. When the book came to me there at the 
mountain post office, and I emptied it out on the 
floor with the other mail, I was a most miserable 
and disappointed individual ; but when Semir- 
amis started out again in a fresh wrapper, directed 
to another publisher, my hopes rose afresh. 


186 


Cis Martin. 


Upon the very day that I received good news 
from Semiraniis I was going to ride old Bay 
over to Bean Creek. With my arms around 
father’s neck I would tell him that the fortune 
in the Tennessee mountains had come at last, 
and that now we could go North to mother and 
the children. Then father and 1 together w^ould 
look for Jack. We would have no difficulty in 
finding Jack. Of course other boys in the Ten- 
nessee mountains might leave their homes and 
remain hidden for a long time, but other boys 
in the Tennessee mountains did not resemble 
Jack. We would inquire for a tall, good-look- 
ing boy, with black eyes and dimples in his 
cheeks and with closely cropped hair. 

How glad Jack would be when he heard of 
the success of Sefnirarnis ! He was so proud ; 
he would not take money from a girl, even if 
that girl were his own sister. He was trying to 
earn money to send himself to school. But 
Jack would be pleased to have father send him 
to school. 

I was very glad that I was able to spend my 
money on Semiramis. 

And so the time went on, and the day arrived 
for the Christmas tree and the school entertain- 
ment. I had thirty-five pupils, and each of 
them was to receive a gift from teacher ; more- 
over, they were to give presents to one another. 
The children hung presents upon the tree all 


A Christmas Present. 


187 


during the day preceding the entertainment, 
and early on the following morning I hung my 
thirty-five gifts with the assistance of Liz. My 
mountain help laughed long and loud as she 
stood in the schoolhouse looking at the deco- 
rated tree. 

“ Laws ! Cis, what is it fer ? ” she asked. 

‘'It’s for Christmas,” I returned. I was 
rather impatient with Liz. She was such a 
great, gawky girl, though she had the face of an 
old woman, and her manners were atrocious; 
besides, she had heard about the tree again and 
again, for Mrs. Slade and numerous other moun- 
tain women had talked of it frequently in the 
post office, and Liz was always lounging in the 
doorway between the post office and the 
kitchen. Then, too, she had just finished help- 
ing me hang the presents for my thirty-five 
pupils. 

My Christmas presents were of little value, 
but my pupils had not been spoiled, and would 
highly appreciate the stick of candy with its ac- 
companying card, one Christmas gift to eat and 
one to keep. These duplicate packages were 
marked with the name of each of my thirty- 
five pupils, together with the words ‘ ‘ From 
teacher.” 

The entertainment was to begin at two 
o’clock, but at noon the mountain people came 
crowding in. I had extended invitations to all 


188 


Cis Martin. 


the neighbors and the children’s parents, but I 
had not imagined that many of them would 
come, for the weather was bad and in some 
places the roads were almost impassable. But 
if there had been a revival at the schoolhouse, 
the crowd would not have been greater. The 
women were arrayed in their Sunday-go-to 
meeting garb ; some of them had very young 
babies with them. I was frightened when I 
perceived that the men were not in a church- 
going mood. Church was religion ; this was a 
festival, a Christmas entertainment — a merry 
thing in the mountains. The men had been 
partaking liberally of their moonshine whisky. 

I bade my pupils sit close together in the front 
benches, and I invited the guests to take pos- 
session of the unoccupied bench room, trying 
not to appear disturbed at their number. The 
Christmas tree was in the middle of the plat- 
form, where everyone could see it ; but the peo- 
ple pressed up upon the platform to see it ' ‘good, ” 
and some of the men insisted upon seeking 
teacher out and shaking hands with her. 

“You’re a first-rate teacher, Cis,” said a 
great, rough-looking mountaineer, shaking my 
hand vigorously. “You’ve got a good head 
on you ; you’ve got a better head on you than 
Jake Mudd, though Jake was a pretty good 
teacher fur’s he went. But he didn’t have no 
idee how to git up a tree like that thar, and he 


A Christmas Present. 


189 


didn’t know how to manage a school entertain- 
ment.” 

The big mountaineer would have been sur- 
prised had he known that I was already in seri- 
ous doubt as to my ability to manage a school 
entertainment in the Tennessee mountains. 

The schoolhouse filled up so quickly with 
guests that after a little the men who wished to 
shake hands with me could not get to me with- 
out pushing hard through the crowd, and the 
crowd had formed a firm intention of allowing 
no one to get in front of anyone else. A terri- 
ble fear took possession of me. Suppose the 
men would get to quarreling ; oftener than not 
they carried knives and pistols. They were not 
at church. I wished most heartily that I had 
asked the preacher to attend the school enter- 
tainment in a professional character. It would 
have been a good thing to lead off with a sermon 
and to wind up with a hymn. However, the 
crowd was smiling rapturously. 

‘ ‘ Cis knows how to git up a mighty fine-look- 
in’ tree if she ain’t lived in the mountuns all 
her life,” exclaimed a voice which I recognized 
as belonging to Bill Pinner. I never laid eyes 
on sech a load o’ pretties.” 

Then I rang the bell for silence, and every- 
body laughed. 

“ Silence! ” I commanded. 

The crowd pressed closer to me. 


190 


Cis Martin. 


John Hill, the miller, was very near. He 
leaned suddenly against the wall. “ Cis,” he 
said to me, “ if I ain’t behavin’ myself, jest you 
put me out.” 

I glanced helplessly about. At last my eyes 
fell upon a man who was undeniably sober, and 
I recognized him as the husband of the gristmill 
woman. 

“Mr. Slade,” I said, in a loud voice, “I au- 
thorize you to help me keep order.” 

Mr. Slade was surprised. He glanced back 
at the crowd pushing him forward. “Laws! 
Cis,” he said, “ I got my little boy, Dolph, to 
look after. I reckon you’ll have to manage the 
rest.” 

I felt as if I were all alone. Then I thought 
of father. Wasn’t he coming home from Bean 
Creek to spend Christmas with me? O, why 
didn’t he come? 

If father were to enter the schoolhouse and 
see me way back in the corner, separated from 
my pupils and the tree by the curious mountain 
people, how quickly he would cause a scattera- 
tion. Even Jack would have been useful and 
compelled the crowd to stand back, but Mrs. 
Slade’s old man had his little boy, Dolph, to 
look after. 

Then a head appeared at one of the short, 
broad windows, and Jake Mudd looked in upon 
us. 


A Christmas Present. 


191 


^‘Give teacher more room there,” ordered 
Jake Mudd, imperatively. How is she going 
to hold an entertainment if she hasn’t room to 
turn round? ” 

Thereupon the mountain people giggled ap- 
preciatively and pushed back a little from the 
tree and me. 

^^What am I to do?” I asked, turning for 
directions to Jake Mudd. “I was going to 
have the children stand on the platform to re- 
cite.” 

‘‘Haven’t you a chair?” he asked. “Say, 
there, some of you fellows find teacher’s chair.” 

My chair was discovered wedged in between 
the crowd and the Christmas tree. It was 
handed over to me with a flourish. 

“Now call the children, one at a time, and 
let them stand on the chair,” said Jake Mudd. 

The children were passed, in turn and in tri- 
umph, through the audience. Each stood upon 
the chair and rattled and stammered off “a 
piece.” 

The mountain people highly enjoyed the reci- 
tations, laughing immoderately whether the 
selection were grave or amusing ; indeed, I be- 
lieve they considered all of the recitations amus- 
ing, and now that the entertainment is over and 
gone, I find myself inclined to agree with them. 

When the boys and girls of the mountain 
school had all covered themselves with glory 


192 


Cis Martin. 


by ‘‘ speaking a piece ” I turned to the window 
and asked Jake Mudd how I was going to man- 
age to give the presents. 

“ It’s your turn to stand upon the chair,” he 
said. , “ Put it close to the tree.” 

The men and women laughed louder than ever 
when I got upon the chair. 

reckon,” said the miller, gravely, ‘‘that 
teacher is goin’ to speak a piece.” 

“Cis has a mighty fine head on her,” pro- 
claimed a woman’s voice in the crowd. “I 
reckon as she kin speak most as good as the 
preacher.” 

But, nevertheless, the audience was delighted 
when, instead of giving them a recitation, I pro- 
ceeded to take the presents from the tree and 
distribute them, after reading out the name of 
the recipient and donor. Every time I read, 
“To teacher,” followed by the name of one of 
my pupils, and dropped my present down beside 
the chair, there were loud applause and hilarious 
laughter. 

It took a long time, but I knew that I must 
go through to the end if I wished to make a 
lasting and satisfactory impression upon the 
people on Roan Mountain. When the mail boy 
came along Jake Mudd went over to the house 
with him and fixed up the mail, but he was back 
to his post in half an hour. 

It was approaching five o’clock when Jake 


A Christmas Present. 


193 


Mudd cleared the schoolhouse, declaring in his 
emphatic voice that the entertainment was over, 
that there were no more pieces to speak, that 
the presents were all given out. 

‘‘ That was a hard job, Cis,” he said, when he 
and I were the only persons left in the school- 
house. 

I looked up at the Christmas tree and gave a 
little laugh, but I did not feel in a very Christ- 
masy humor. 

“ I have something to tell you, Cis,” said 
Jake Mudd. 

‘ ‘ I know what it is.” I returned. ^ ‘ Semiramis 
has come back.” 

We stepped out into the fresh air. I was 
glad to get away from the snuff-smelling school- 
house. 

Yes, Semiramis had come back, and Jake 
Mudd declared again that the publisher would 
be sorry some day ; but his words failed to cheer 
me. 

“ But that wasn’t what I had to tell you, Cis,” 
he went on. “ I’ve found out where Jack is.” 

“ Jack! ” I cried. “ Is he home? ” 

“No,” said Jake Mudd, “ he isn’t home. He’s 
over yon in the mountains working in an iron 
mine.” 

“O!” I said, with a quivering sigh. I had 
said that I thought Jack might be working in 
an iron mine. I had had all sorts of visions of 
13 


194 


Cis Martin. 


Jack in the garb of a miner, but the actuality of 
the thing came upon me with a shock. 

“Why didn’t you tell him to come home? ” I 
demanded. 

“Why, I didn’t see Jack,” said Jake Mudd, 
astonished. “ I heard he was working in an 
iron mine.” 

' ‘ And you didn’t take the trouble to go and 
see if it were really true?” I cried. “You 
weren’t willing to do that much for father and 
me? O ! ” I cried, in a passion of grief, “ if only 
I were a man ! ” 

But Jake Mudd refused to be angry with me. 

“ It wouldn’t be the right thing,” he said, 
“ for anyone to persuade Jack to come home. 
He’d always think that he’d lost his chance of 
making money; he’d always consider that his 
friends were to blame.” 

“ He’ll never consider you to blame,” I cried, 
ironically. 

“ No, he won’t,” returned Jake Mudd, calmly. 

‘ ‘ I’m not going to make a mistake like that. 
Jack will be home soon enough. He isn’t going 
to make money in an iron mine.” 

“ Why not? ” I asked. 

“Well, Cis,” said Jake Mudd, “Jack is too 
young for a job at bossing, and he’s a trifle too 
bossy for boy’s work. Besides, he isn’t used to 
hard work, and mining is hard work.” 

“ Is it very hard? ” I asked, faintly. 


A Christmas Present. 


195 


‘‘ It’s no ways easy,” returned Jake Mudd. 

I wish father would come home,” I said. 

“ It will be a lonesome kind of Christmas for 
you, Cis,” said Jake Mudd, looking away from 
me. It doesn’t seem quite fair. You’ve given 
the people such a fine entertainment too.” 

I thought for a minute that he was laughing 
at the school entertainment, but he wasn’t ; in- 
deed, he considered it wonderful that I had suc- 
ceeded in getting a recitation for each child. 

“ I am glad you thought about the chair,” I 
said, humbly. After all, I had not been very 
kind to Jake Mudd. He was very good to me. 
Perhaps he really knew better how to act about 
Jack than I, but it made me feel very bad to 
know for sure that my brother was working in 
an iron mine. What would mother do if she 
knew it? 

Jake Mudd seemed to be reading my thoughts. 

“There isn’t any need to tell Mis’ Martin 
about Jack,” he said. “ Jack will turn out all 
right in the end. He’ll get over this little spree 
and come home and settle down again to pre- 
paring for college. If I were you, Fd make up 
my mind not to worry any more about him. 
Just say to yourself that Jack will turn out all 
right in the end.” 

But this was difficult advice to follow. 

“ I know,” said Jake Mudd, as I opened the 
door of Uncle Ben’s house, “that that historical 


196 


Cis Martin. 


novel of your father’s isn’t always going to be 
returned by a publisher. Some day it will be 
accepted and make a hit. Then you and your 
father and Jack will go back in triumph to New 
York State. I reckon you’ll be highflyers up in 
New York State.” He laughed as if he didn’t 
altogether relish the idea. “ But you won’t be 
able to forget the Tennessee mountains,” he 
added, “and the people will always remember 
that you gave them a fine Christmas entertain- 
ment.” 

It was kind of Jake Mudd to talk like this, es- 
pecially when the air castle he was building was 
not to hold himself, but I think he hated the 
idea of my going into the little house where 
Semiramis and Liz Moon were waiting for me. 

That night, however, I received a curious 
Christmas gift. The gristmill woman called 
me out into the hall in a mysterious whisper. I 
feared that some one was ill or dying. 

“Thar’s som’n outside the door for you, Cis,” 
said Mrs. Slade. “ It’s a Christmas gift.” 

I looked out the door and saw a small boy 
holding a pig by a rope. 

“ O, Mis’ Slade,” I cried, in alarm, “ Dolph 
isn’t bringing me his pet pig? ” 

Mrs. Slade laughed delightedly. 

“ Laws! no, Cis,” she said ; bringin’ you 

the Christmas gift ; I’m bringin’ you Dolph ! ” 

“ Dolph 1 ” I repeated. 


I * 



» > 


“ /’w bringin’ you the Christmas gift 











A Christmas Present. 


197 


“Yes,” said Mrs. Slade, “I’m gunno give 
Dolph to you. Them Brown folks treated you 
and yer maw mighty mean when they took the 
baby away from you. Everybody on these yer 
mountuns said that baby would ’a’ been brought 
up better by you and yer maw than it’s ever 
gunno be brought up at home. I’ve been 
thinkin’ ’bout you a long time, Cis — a tender- 
foot like you livin’ yer with nobody but Liz 
Moon, and I’ve said to the old man time and 
agin that it was a mortal shame. 

‘ ‘ Laws ! Cis, we was all so pleased with that 
thar entertainment up yon at the sehoolhouse,” 
my visitor continued, with a lurst of enthu- 
siasm. “When Dolph stood up yon on the 
chair and hollered out his piece good as a man 
I jest ’lowed to myself that you was the best 
teacher ever got hold o’ the sehoolhouse, and 
when your time came to stand on the chair, and 
you give out them little candy fixin’s and flung 
your part down on the floor, I concluded that 
you certainly deserved a better Christmas gift 
than them things.” 

“ But you musn’t think of giving me Dolph, 
Mrs. Slade,” I entreated. “ I won’t accept such 
a present. Why, what would you do over at 
the gristmill if you hadn’t Dolph ? ” 

“Well,” said Mrs. Slade, “ I’m that hard at 
work I won’t miss him much in the daytime. 
Laws! I won’t miss him none, fer he’s been 


198 


Cis Martin. 


’tending school straight along. Yes, Dolph’s 
been ’tendin’ school and drawin’ his pay.” She 
winked at me. ‘‘ I’ll miss him some at night, to 
be sure, but I got my knittin’, and the old man’s 
got his pipe. It won’t be near as bad fer us 
two as fer a tenderfoot like you settin’ yer with 
nobody but Liz Moon fer company, and the doc- 
tor over yon to Bean Creek and Jack workin’ in 
the iron mine.” 

It was astonishing how rapidly a bit of news 
traveled about Roan Mountain. 

‘ ‘ But Dolph doesn’t want to be given away to 
me. Mis’ Slade,” I said. “ Dolph would rather 
stay at home.” 

‘'No, mom, he wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Slade. 
“ Dolph he’s jest tickled to death ; he wants fer 
all the world to be give to you.” 

“ Is that true, Dolph? ” I asked. 

My pupil nodded his head. 

‘ ‘ Laws ! he kin come ’cross to the gris’mill 
whenever he wants,” said Mrs. Slade. “ He 
kin fetch yer meal fer you, Cis. He kin ride 
the bay horse — can’t you, Dolph? ” 

Again Dolph nodded his head. 

“He thinks it wasn’t fair that vSam Brown 
took that thar baby home to Mis’ Brown,” said 
the gristmill woman. 

“It zvasnt fair,” declared Dolph. 

Then Mrs. Slade said “Good-bye,” and ran 
across the lot, turned at the fence, and called 


A Christmas Present. 


199 


back “Good-bye” again, and disappeared down 
the mountain road. 

I regarded my Christmas gift with growing 
perplexity. The boy’s bright eyes met mine. 

“ Teacher,” asked Dolph Slade, “ whar is my 
little pig goin’ to sleep? ” 


200 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Dolph's Ambition* 

D OLPH SLADE spent Christmas Day 
making* a pen for his pet pig. 

I did not think when I went to the 
Tennessee mountains to live that I should ever 
sleep a night under the roof with a pig, but 
Dolph’s pet pig had spent its first night at Aunt 
Sabina’s in a box behind the kitchen stove. 
Dolph was of the opinion that that would be a 
good place for it always, but I insisted that the 
pig must have a pen in the lot. 

“ It wouldn’t do at all, Dolph,” I explained, 
‘‘to let the pig sleep in the kitchen. After 
a while it will grow up ; then what would we 
do?” 

“ Then we’d eat it,” said practical Dolph. 

I have been thankful to Mrs. Slade again and 
again for presenting me with such a novel 
Christmas gift. Dolph was such a very bright 
little fellow, and he proved a great help to me. 
Indeed, I never became attached to Liz Moon. 
I sometimes wondered why the girl remained 
with me. I suppose it was owing to the fact 
that she could buy finery with the money that I 
paid her. I do not understand, either, why it 
was that I did not try to hire a more compan- 


Dolph’s Ambition. 


201 


ionable girl. Of course, at first, I was busy with 
the mountain school, and after Mrs. Slade gave 
Dolph to me I did not feel the need of further 
companionship outside of my own family. Dolph 
possessed his mother’s cheerful disposition, and 
he adored me. I am satisfied that he considered 
me one of the most learned of beings. He loved 
to ask me questions about the place where 
mother and the children had gone to and about 
the school at which I had graduated. Dolph 
Slade had taken it into his small head to be 
educated. 

‘ ‘ What are you going to be when you are a 
man, Dolph?” I asked him one day. 

I did not imagine for a moment that Dolph 
had any decided notions in regard to his future 
avocation, and I rather expected to be obliged 
to help him along in his choice. I half laughed 
as I put the question to him. 

But Dolph answered without hesitation. 
“When I’m a man, teacher,” he said, “I’m 
gunno be a mountun preacher.” 

Liz, who was leaning in the kitchen door, 
burst out laughing. 

‘ ' What you gunno preach about up yon to 
schoolhouse, Dolph?” .she inquired, flippantly. 

Dolph did not like Liz Moon to laugh at him. 
He paid no attention whatever to her question. 

“ I won’t be one of these picked-up mountun 
preachers, teacher,” he went on, regarding' me 


202 


Cis Martin 


seriously. “I couldn’t be that kind, could I? 
’cause maw give me to you. I wanted maw to 
give me to you so’s I could be a first-rate moun- 
tun preacher.” 

Mrs. Slade enjoyed herself immensely when 
she called to see us. 

‘‘I hear, Cis,” she said one day, “that you 
and Dolph is havin’ school to yerselves.” 

“ That’s the way to learn, maw,” spoke up 
Dolph. “Folks remember things when they 
have school all the time.” 

“ You read pretty good a’ready, Dolph,” said 
the gristmill woman, smiling proudly, “and 
you count first-rate, and you spell pretty good.” 

“Yes,” acquiesced Dolph, who was by no 
means modest about his accomplishments, ‘ ‘ and 
I kin speak pieces better’n most arybody. I 
calc’late I’ll make a good preacher. ” 

Mrs. Slade as well as Liz Moon thought it was 
a great joke for a boy the size of Dolph to be 
talking about being a preacher and for me to 
encourage him in the idea. 

“You’ll holler at ’em in fine style up yon 
to the schoolhouse, Dolph,” said Mrs. Slade. 
“You’ll pound the readin’ stand harder’n old 
Brother Harrymot, I reckon.” 

Dolph looked at me. “I won’t be nothin’ 
like old Brother Harrymot, will I, teacher?” he 
asked. “ Mebbe, though, I’ll pound the readin’ 
stand, maw,” 


Dolph’s Ambition. 


203 


“ You’ll go round shakin’ hands to all the 
folks, and the tears will be rolling down yer 
cheeks; you’ll be prayin’ with all yer mortal 
might,” cried Dolph’s mother, with a twinkle in 
her eyes. 

“ No,” said Dolph, positively, “ I won’t. I’m 
not gunno be jest one o’ these picked-up preach- 
ers. I’m not gunno preach no funeral sermon 
years after the person’s dead; I’ll have my 
funeral sermons soon’s folks die. Teacher is 
gunno make a furriner out o’ me, maw.” 

“ Laws ! boy, you’ll kill me,” screamed Dolph’s 
merry mother. “ I must go ’long back to the 
grist’mill and tell the old man that you’re gunno 
be a furriner.” 

'‘Well, it will be the truth,” said Dolph, 
regarding his mother with unsmiling eyes. 

As soon as Jake Mudd had discovered the 
whereabouts of Jack I had written to my 
brother, imploring him to return to Roan and 
keep his promise to mother, telling him that I 
found the Tennessee mountains very lonely 
without either father or him. 

Jake Mudd made a mistake when he said that 
Jack would not be able to work in an iron mine. 
My brother wrote me a very senvsible letter. He 
said that he was getting on very well in the 
mine ; that of course everything wasn’t as 
pleasant as he could wish, but that beggars 
couldn’t be choosers, and he was laying by some 


204 


Cis Martin. 


money. “No, Cissy, I cannot return to Roan,’’ 
Jack wrote; “I just cannot stand the lumber 
business in the Tennessee mountains. It makes 
me sick to think of father working hard without 
any benefit to himself. If Kirk had listened to 
father and dealt with him fairly and squarely 
from the beginning, it would all have been dif- 
ferent. There would be no steam sawmills on 
the Roan, at least if there were any, they would 
belong to father.” 

Jack and I kept up a regular correspondence 
after that, and when I wrote to mother I said that 
Jack was working hard and that he was deter- 
mined to have a college education. When Jack, 
later on, told me in a letter that he had grown two 
inches since he left Roan I immediately wrote 
to mother, telling her that Jack was three inches 
taller than I. I do not think that there was any 
harm in thus deceiving mother, nor in forward- 
ing in my letters an occasional letter from Jack, 
bearing the word “ Roan ” for a heading. 

“ I am terribly rough-looking,” Jack said to 
me in one of his letters, “ but don’t let that 
worry you; it’ll wear off in time. I’m not 
ashamed of working in the mines. When I 
earn enough money to go to college I imagine 
that I’ll be about a head taller than Jake Mudd. 
I’ll be well able to hold my own.” 

In a certain postscript Jack said : 

“ Have you heard anything about Kirk lately? 


Dolph’s Ambition. 


205 


I wish father would leave Bean Creek. He is 
working too hard. He ought to get somebody 
else to look after the timber cutting while the 
water is frozen. If I were in his place, I would 
let the Bean Creek timber go and return to the 
sawmill at the big dam.” 

Jack’s postscript to another letter ran ; 

‘ ‘ I understand that Kirk is treating father 
very meanly. They say it is a miserable place 
over at Bean Creek. I wish, Cissy, that you 
could prevail upon father to return to Roan.” 

I was so frightened when I read Jack’s post- 
script that I sat right down and wrote a long 
letter to father. I knew that it was useless for 
me to try to persuade him to return to Roan, but 
I asked him to let me go over to Bean Creek 
and live with him. There was no mail running 
between Roan and Bean Creek, and father’s 
letters to me and my letters to father were gen- 
erally carried by sawmill men whose homes 
were at Roan, but who were working at Bean 
Creek. Father’s letters to mother, like Jack’s, 
were headed ‘"Roan.” 

Father sent a special messenger with his an- 
swer to my letter. He said that my living at 
Bean Creek was altogether out of the question ; 
that he hoped shortly to straighten up matters 
there, and return to Roan and start the men 
sawing at the big dam sawmill. “Then,” he said, 
“ I will again be with my good little daughter. 


206 


Cis Martin. 


who is determined to dwell in the Tennessee 
mountains until her old father has proved him- 
self something more than a dreamer.” 

At this time mother was urging father to re- 
turn to New York. She had not succeeded in 
obtaining any employment for him, but grand- 
papa had said that a man ought to show him- 
self in order to obtain employment ; therefore 
my dear little mother was exceedingly eager for 
father to show himself. She was growing 
strong again, but she wanted her family to be 
with her. She had entirely forgiven the people 
at the college. The new president had called 
on her and spoken in glowing terms of father. 
He had asked after Jack. He had called again 
and given it as his opinion that the college had 
treated father unfairly; that the Greek and 
Latin classes had gone down since father taught 
them. Then mother added that there was a 
secret in her letter to Jack. 

I did not know what this secret was until I 
heard from mother again. ‘‘Why is it that 
Jack has not answered my letteh?” she asked. 

‘ ‘ Surely he has told you that the new president 
has offered to educate him at the college free of 
charge, on account of your father’s good service 
to the college. I do not understand why Jack 
has not written a word to me on the subject. 
He must know that nothing could please me 
better than to have him attend the college. 


Dolph^s Ambition. 


207 


Cissy, tell your father that there is no longer 
any need for him to try to make a fortune. 
Your grandpapa says we can all live with him, 
and the children are to be educated. When I 
think of those trees lying on the sides of the 
mountains and of the big dam and of the water 
mills I am sure that your father has done 
enough work for one man. He is gettting old 
and he deserves a rest. Everyone does not suc- 
ceed as the world counts success. If he does 
not wish to live at grandpapa’s, why, we can rent 
a house and take boarders. Tell father that. 
I dream about the mountains and the rushing 
streams and the winds moaning in the pines, 
and I wonder, when I look in the glass, to see 
myself so well and strong.” 

But what could I say in a letter to prevail upon 
father not only to leave Bean Creek, but to 
leave Bean Creek for the New York town ? I 
had long ago become disgusted with my compo- 
sitional powers that at one time I had rated so 
high. One of my reasons for this disgust was 
owing to the fact that Jake Mudd, who had 
never lived outside the Tennessee mountains, 
wrote an article and sent it to a good magazine, 
and it was accepted and paid for. When he 
told me about it he did not know that I had once 
entertained hopes of making money by writing 
for the magazines. 

“ It was just a simple little thing,” he said. 


208 


Cis Martin. 


looking at me and blushing ; ‘ but they accepted 
it and asked for more.” 

*‘And Semiramis was returned,” I said, 
cruelly. 

Jake Mudd’s face became very red. 

‘‘O, but this was something different,” he 
declared ; ‘ ‘ anybody might have written it ; it 
was only a simple little article.” 

“ What was it about ? ” I asked. 

“O,” said Jake Mudd, “it was about lum- 
ber.” 

“ About sawmills ? ” I questioned. 

‘Wes,” said Jake Mudd, looking straight at 
me; “ it was about sawmills, Cis.” 

“Was it about water sawmills or steam saw- 
mills ? ” I asked. 

“Both,” he answered, with a foolish laugh. 

Jack sent me his answer to mother’s letter; 
I was pretty sure what it was. He had refused 
the excellent chance that had been offered him. 
I pitied mother and ! pitied Jack, but, most of 
all, I pitied father, over at that miserable Bean 
Creek, overlooking the men who were cutting 
timber for Kirk. 

I said to myself that when the spring opened 
and the roads became fit for traveling I would 
ride old Bay over to Bean Creek, and tell 
father that I had come to live with him, for I 
did not believe that he would ever be able to 
straighten up matters at Bean Creek ; moreover. 


Dolph's Ambition. 


209 


I had a morbid presentiment that never again 
would father start the men to sawing at the 
sawmill below the big dam. Dolph and I had 
ridden up there one gloomy Sunday, and Dolph 
had amused himself by breaking the ice all 
around the edges with the heel of his boot. I 
don’t know why it was, but a feeling of sorrow 
overwhelmed me. It may be that I was think- 
ing of the time when J stood under the tent 
with father, and heard his plans about the for- 
tune that was sure to come, and looked at Jack 
standing down by the sawmill. 

One night we were sitting by the kitchen 
stove in Aunt Sabina’s house. Liz Moon had 
made a roaring fire. It was early in the month 
of March, and it had been snowing all day. 
The wind was moaning dismally around the 
house. Dolph was sitting beside me on a little 
stool; Liz was opposite. We were all three si- 
lent. It was an unusual thing for Liz Moon to 
be silent. She was a very foolish-talking 
young woman, and, as a rule, had a great deal 
to say ; sometimes she and Dolph quarreled. 

Father was very glad that I had Dolph living 
with me, but he bade me to hold on to Liz. 
‘‘These mountain girls are a rough lot,” he 
said, “but they are better than nobody. I 
don’t want you to ruin your health as your 
mother did. Make Liz Moon bear the heavy 

burdens.” 

14 


210 


Cis Martin. 


But all througli the winter, after school broke 
up, I visited the mountain people when they 
were sick. I understood why mother, who was 
never very strong, should have lost her health 
in the performance of such dismal duties. I 
was wondering over mother’s cheerfulness, as 
we sat there in silence, when suddenly a face ap- 
peared at the window, causing me to start vio- 
lently. 

It was a haggard, miserable-looking face, 
probably belonging to one of the hands at the 
steam sawmill. I could see that the man had 
been indulging freely in moonshine whisky, 
and that he was trying to attract the attention 
of Liz Moon. 

Dolph put his hand on my arm. “ Tell Liz 
Moon to look at you,” he said, in a low voice. 

The man tapped upon the window. 

I think that Liz had fallen half asleep in her 
chair, but the tapping on the window aroused 
her. I fixed her with my eyes. 

“ Liz,” I commanded, “ look straight at me !” 

“Yes, mom,” said Liz. 

I suppose that even in the mountain school- 
house I had learned the art of commanding. 

The man at the window tapped again. I was 
trembling with terror, but I kept my eyes upon 
Liz, ordered her not to turn around, and she 
obeyed my command. 

I don’t know how long we sat thus ; it seemed 


Dolph's Ambition. 


211 


an age to me. The snow was falling softly all 
about the horrid face and the wind continued to 
moan dismally. Still I kept the ascendency 
over Liz, and Dolph Slade uttered no word. 

When the man finally quitted the window we 
still sat there, I staring at Liz, Dolph listening, 
with his head to the side. 

“ He’s gone back to the road, teacher,” said 
Dolph ; ‘‘he won’t come yer no more.” 

Then Liz burst into rude laughter. 

“What was the matter with you, anyway, 
Cis ? ” she demanded. “You skeered me, you 
looked so funny. Thar wa’n’t ary bear at the 
winder, I reckon.” She rose and went into the 
other room, her bright frock flashing in the 
lamplight as she passed me. 

“ He was her beau,” said Dolph Slade. 
“ She’d opened the door and let him in if you’d 
let her look round at the winder. He’d been 
drinkin’, and he’d skeered you, teacher.” 

“ Dolph,” I said, nervously, “you are a dear 
little fellow,” and then I buried my face in my 
hands and burst out crying. 

“Why, teacher,” questioned Dolph, “you 
ain’t skeered now! He’s plumb gone.” 

“ I hate to live in the Tennessee mountains, 
Dolph,” I said, still sobbing drearily. 

“ They’re pretty, teacher,” said Dolph. 

“ Mother says that she thinks about the wind 
in the pines and the streams, and father and 


212 


Cis Martin. 


Jack and me, and she’s miserable up at grand- 
papa’s because we aren’t there, and I am miser- 
able because we aren’t there too, and surely 
father must be miserable over at Bean 
Creek.” 

“ But it’s pretty everywhar, Cis,” said the fu- 
ture preacher. 

Then Liz Moon returned to the kitchen. 
“It’s a mighty dull place yer, Cis,” she said. 
“ I think to-morrow I’ll start fer home.” 

“ The snow will be two feet deep by morn- 
ing, Liz,” I said in amazement; “ you can’t go 
home.” 

“Don’t you believe it!” said Liz. “ I wish 
you’d pay me my money to-night.” 

The next morning when I came down stairs 
my handmaiden had already departed. She 
had left the kitchen door wide open. The snow 
was blowing in on the kitchen floor. Dolph 
Slade was making the fire, but he had not 
thought of closing the door. 

So for a while Dolph and I lived together in 
Aunt Sabina’s house. It tickled Dolph’s mother 
immensely. 

“ It’s jest like you and Jack,” she said. 
“ Dolph he ain’t near as big as Jack, but he’s 
growin’, and he’s good at askin’ questions same 
as Jack was when he first come to these yer 
mountuns. But Dolph he ain’t much fer askin’ 
questions ’bout the mountuns ; what he’s in fer 


Dolph's Ambition. 


213 


findin’ out is them things that happen fur off 
from the mountuns.” 

When the spring was really upon us I began 
again laying plans about going over to Bean 
Creek and living with father. I really did hate 
the idea of giving up Dolph Slade, but it would 
never do to take him with me to Bean Creek. 
He must return to his mother. 

Summer would follow spring rapidly enough. 
If I lived with father at Bean Creek, some one 
else would have to teach the school at Roan. 
I wondered who this person would be — some 
man, in all probability, from down the railroad. 
I hoped he would be kind to Dolph. I felt cer- 
tain that Dolph would miss me, but I was not 
at all afraid that he would relinquish his idea 
of being educated. If Jake Mudd had perse- 
vered, why should not Dolph ? 

But it was a long time before I could find it 
in my heart to prepare Dolph for the separation. 
He seemed to think that since his mother had 
given him to me he and I were always to be 
together. He was a very bright and capable 
boy. I had told him all about Semiramis, and 
he had questioned me in regard to the selling 
of a book, and he had a catalogue in which he 
had run rings in pencil around the names of 
publishers. He had learned to write wonder- 
fully well during his term as my one pupil, and 
he seemed to realize that Semiramis was a great 


214 Cis Martin. 

work, although I had, of course, only read short 
extracts to him. 

What Dolph Slade could not understand in re- 
*gard to Semiramis was why the publishers had 
sent it back. 

'' If it’s good,” he said, “they ought to keep 
it, oughtn’t they, teacher? They can’t make 
money off a book if they don’t keep it. Mebbe,” 
he added, “ them publishers didn’t know that it 
was good.” 

You may be sure I heartily agreed with Dolph 
in this solving of the problem. 

At last I broached the subject of parting. 

“ Suppose, Dolph,” I said, “ I were to go over 
to Bean Creek to father; what would you 
do?” 

“ I wouldn’t do nothin’,” said Dolph. 

“Would you go home and live with your 
mother and say your lessons every night and 
write in your copybook? ” I inquired. 

“Yes, mom,” said Dolph. 

‘ ‘ And you would be ready to start to school 
when it opened? ” 

But Dolph did not hear my last question. 

“ I tell you what I would do, teacher,” he 
said. “I would make a big fire in the cook 
stove, not enough to burn the house down, but a 
pretty powerful big fire, and I’d cook a supper 
for you when you come back from Bean Creek. 
I’d have the jug o’ sweet’nin’ settin’ on the table, 


Dolph's Ambition. 


215 


and I’d make some egg butter when I seen you 
lopin’ down the road.” 

After all, this wouldn’t be a bad arrangement. 
I would go to Bean Creek to see father. I 
would send a message from Bean Creek that I 
intended remaining with father. 

Poor little Dolph skipped happily about the 
kitchen floor. “ Yes,” he shouted, “ I’ll make 
a rousin’ fire in the cook stove, most big enough 
to burn the house down, and I’ll bake corn brad 
and I’ll fry bacon fer you, teacher, for you’ll be 
hungry when you come lopin’ down the road 
from Bean Creek.” 

Spring in the Tennessee mountains is truly 
beautiful. The grass is green in the sunshine ; 
the streams are all rushing madly. It was a 
year since mother and the children had left Roan 
Mountain. I also was to leave Roan Mountain, 
but my heart was sore and heavy when I thought 
of Bean Creek. 

I ate very little dinner the day that I decided to 
go to Bean Creek on the morrow. Directly after 
dinner I went into the post office and proceeded 
to write a note to Jake Mudd. It was a singu- 
lar thing for me not to think of the post office 
until almost the last moment. But, of course, 
Jake Mudd would attend to the post office. 
He would, in all probability, be glad to add a 
little to his income in this way. It made me 
rather bitter to think that if father were at Roan, 


216 


Cis Martin. 


I could keep the post office and the mountain 
school, and make things comfortable for him ; 
whereas I must relinquish both in order to be 
with him over at Bean Creek. But more than 
anything else on that beautiful spring day did 
I want to be with father. 

I finished the letter to Jake Mudd and went to 
work wrapping up Semiramis to forward it to 
another publisher. I was just dipping my pen 
in the ink to write the name and address of the 
publisher when Dolph came running in. 

^‘Teacher,” he said, excitedly, “ thar’s a fel- 
ler just a-gallopin’ into the lot. He looks as if 
he’d come plumb up from the station.” 

“ Who can he be? ” I asked, wonderingly. 

I don’t know, teacher,” said Dolph. 

I walked to the door to meet the man who had 
come galloping into the lot. 

“ I got a telegram fer the doctor,” he said. 

He handed me a little brown envelope, and he 
opened a book. 

“You sign yer name yer, Cis,” he directed. 

My hand trembled as I signed my name in 
the book, while the man from the station and 
Dolph Slade regarded me with wide-open eyes. 

“What is a telegram, teacher?” inquired 
Dolph, after the man had gone. 

“ O, Dolph,” I cried, “it is bad news, and I 
must go over to Bean Creek and take it to father.” 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


217 


CHAPTER XIIL 
The Rxdc to Bean Creek* 

D OLPH got Uncle Ben’s horse out of the 
stable and saddled it while I made ready 
for my ride to Bean Creek. The telegram 
was in my pocket when I jumped upon the back 
of old Bay and grasped the bridle. It is strange 
that at moments of intense excitement people 
sometimes think of such ordinary things. Be- 
fore me in the lot were a number of beehives 
left by Aunt Sabina. They were made out of 
parts of the trunks of trees sawed off evenly at 
either end. The bees were swarming about the 
hives, and I thought of the wonderful industry 
of bees, and wondered vaguely if there would 
be much honey that year. 

Dolph Slade cut a whip from a bush near by 
and handed it to me. Then I asked him if he 
knew the way to Bean Creek. 

“ You go up yon to other side of the big dam,” 
said Dolph. “You keep the straight road to 
North Caroliny, I reckon,” Then my pupil 
looked at me seriously and inquired, ‘ ‘ Whar 
does a telegram come from, teacher? ” 

I did not attempt to answer Dolph’s question. 
I bade him give the letter I had written to Jake 
Mudd and to say that I had been called away sud- 


218 


Cis Martin. 


denly; and I told him, with a tremble in my 
voice, to go home to his mother and to say to her 
that teacher regarded him as one of the best 
little boys in the world, and that she never, 
never would forget her Christmas gift in the 
Tennessee mountains. 

“Yes, mom,” said Dolph. “I’ll go over to 
maw’s till you git back to Roan.” 

So at last I was actually starting out to Bean 
Creek to my father. The sun was shining 
brightly ; the creeks and little rivers were riot- 
ous. But I was going to my father with a tele- 
gram in my pocket. It never entered my mind 
to open the envelope and read the message ; in- 
deed, I was always a coward in regard to tele- 
grams. 

I had not been able to answer Dolph’s ques- 
tion as to where a telegram came from. Where 
had this special telegram come from ? Two an- 
swers tortured me : one contained the word 
“ Jack,” and the other the word “mother.” Tele- 
grams are pithy affairs. This one, perhaps, 
read: “Jack Martin has met with an accident 
in the mine,” or, “ Come home at once; your 
mother is dying.” Then as I shuddered all 
over I remembered that the telegram was to 
father, not to me. It would not contain the 
word “mother,” but it might say, “Come at 
once,” and somebody would be dying. Could 
it possibly be that the message related to my 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


219 


little sisters or Tom? I recollected hearing a 
story about scarlet fever carrying off a whole 
family of children. But I let the idea of a great 
calamity connected with little Marg and them 
folks pass from me. In Aunt Lavinia’s last let- 
ter she had said that the children were all well 
and doing finely at school. If the telegram 
came from grandpapa’s, it must be about mother. 
I never for a moment thought that a telegram 
from grandpapa’s might bring sad news of grand- 
papa or even Aunt Lavinia ; yet grandpapa was a 
very old man, and there was no reason in the 
world why Aunt Lavinia should not be suddenly 
taken ill. 

As I urged old Bay up the steep mountain 
road with the trees meeting overhead, as I 
trotted him along the levels and forded the 
rivers, there came to me a vision of the interior 
of an iron mine. I could see distinctly the dark 
walls and the little lamps of the miners and the 
dangerous cars. I heard the door in the moun- 
tain shut with a click behind Jack, and I saw 
my brother with the little lamp flaring in his 
cap. How tall and strong he was, and how full 
of hope for the future ! Then I was outside the 
mine, gazing steadfastly at the door, wondering 
if Jack had anything to do with the dangerous 
cars. While I stood there the door was opened 
from within, and a number of miners appeared, 
carrying something between them. The miners’ 


220 


Cis Martin. 


faces were very sad, and one of them said, “ We 
must send a message to his people.” The mes- 
sage was in my pocket. I let the bridle fall 
upon old Bay’s neck, and, covering my face, 
cried out, “O, God! he isn’t dead! Jack isn’t 
dead! ” 

Then I was up at grandpapa’s ; I was wander- 
ing through the house ; everything was strangely 
silent. I saw Aunt Lavinia hurrying along the 
hall. She mounted the stairs and entered the 
front room at the right, and I knew instinctively 
that this was mother’s room. I looked about 
until I found Mattie and Lavinia and little Marg 
sitting together on the library sofa. Lavinia 
was gazing far out the library window ; Mattie 
was leaning against the arm of the sofa, with 
her face hidden ; little Marg’s hands were folded 
primly on her lap. She was a different-looking 
little Marg from the one who had run wild 
in the Tennessee mountains. Her curly hair 
reached to her shoulders; she had tassels on 
her little shoes. She was swinging her feet 
noiselessly. Then I wandered on and discovered 
Tom. He was outside the house, on the portico 
steps, with his elbows on his knees and his face 
held up by his hands. As I looked at my 
brother Tom, in fancy, it seemed to me that 
mother was very, very ill ; and I thought what 
a pity it would be if this boy’s mother were to 
die. “ He needs his mother. God,” I sobbed 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


221 


out, ‘‘all these children need their mother. 
Jack and I need our mother. God, I don’t want 
to live if I haven’t any mother.” 

Then I saw grandpapa on the front porch of 
the large old house, walking slowly up and 
down. He was a very old man ; his face was 
agitated; he leaned heavily upon his cane. He 
paused before the door and looked in and called 
“ Lavinia.” Then Aunt Lavinia, on her way 
from the upstairs room, came to the door for a 
minute. Her face was white and drawn ; her 
eyes were filled with a strange sorrow. She had 
just come from my mother, who was dying. 

“ We must send a message to her husband,” 
said grandpapa. “John Martin ought to be 
here.” 

I cried out piteously, ‘ ‘ God, spare my father ! ” 
And then again my inconsistent thoughts went 
back to the dismal mine and the little flickering 
lamps, and I rode on miserably. 

I knew that Bean Creek was twelve or fifteen 
miles from Roan. I kept the straight North 
Carolina road for miles, asking my way every 
now and then. After I had ridden for several 
hours a man bade me turn to the left, and from 
then on I was obliged to ask the way very often. 
Many of the mountain people were as ignorant 
as myself in regard to the whereabouts of Bean 
Creek, but the men I encountered in the road 
were more intelligent than the women in the 


222 


Cis Martin. 


houses. The evening was advancing ; I began 
to fear that night would overtake me. 

“You want know whar Bean Creek is?” 
asked a man, stopping beside me in the road. 
“It’s far, mom; yes, it’s far. It’s a good piece 
down yon.” 

“ Can I make it before night? ” I asked. 

“ Yes, mom,” returned the man ; “if you ride 
pretty brisk, I reckon you kin make it before 
black dark.” He regarded me searchingly. 
“Ain’t I seen you back yon to Roan?” he in- 
quired, a grin spreading over his countenance. 
‘ ‘ Ain’t I seen you to the church house on Roan 
Mountun ? ” 

Like mother, I had lost my pride. 

“Yes,” I said, “ I’m Cis Martin.” 

“ I thought ’twas you,” said the mountaineer. 
“I said to myself, ‘I’ll be bound that thar’s 
Cis Martin.’ I heered that you held a powerful 
fine entertainment at the schoolhouse.” 

“ Is Bean Creek to the left or to the right? ” 
I asked. 

The man turned and gazed stupidly at the 
road. “You keep straight along till you come 
to the mill,” he explained, “ then you turn. Be 
sure you don’t go round the mill. If you ride 
pretty brisk, you’ll git thar before black dark, I 
calc’late. I seen the doctor,” he added, “ down 
yon to Bean Creek. I was cuttin’ timber fer 
him last week.” 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


223 


''Was father well when you saw him?” I 
questioned. I wondered at the calmness and 
coldness of my voice. 

"He was lookin’ splendid,” said the man. 

‘ ‘ Thar ain’t no doubt but the doctor is gunno 
make a powerful lot o’ money out o’ this yer 
timber business.” 

Then I urged my horse along. 

The gloom of evening was upon the old mill. 
I reached the place where the road forked and 
was very particular not to go round the mill. 

I had thought when I had made my plans for 
going over to Bean Creek to live with father 
that the sight of father would make- my work 
easy. I had intended to tell him decidedly that 
I would not live at Roan while he lived at 
Bean Creek ; that we both must be together in 
the Tennessee mountains. But I was carrying 
a telegram to father. "What is a telegram, 
teacher? ” it seemed to me that Dolph Slade 
was asking me, and again I answered, "It is 
bad news,, and I have to go over to Bean Creek 
and take it to father.” 

" Where is a telegram from, teacher? ” Dolph’s 
inquiring voice sounded in my ears. Where 
was it from? My hands grew hot on the bridle. 
I would know when I gave it to father. Then 
father and I would go back together. Probably 
we would ride along in the night. We would 
stop at Roan and prepare for a journey, then we 


224 


Cis Martin. 


would go on to the station. Would we take the 
narrow-gauge car going up or down the railroad ? 
If we went up the railroad, we. would leave the 
car at the terminus, take horses again, and go on 
until we reached the iron mines. What would 
be waiting for us there? If, on the other hand, 
we went down the railroad, we would change 
cars at the Southern city and travel in the fast 
express to New York. It would take us a long 
time to make the journey, and what would be 
waiting for us there ? I touched my whip to old 
Bay. It was almost night. 

“ How far am I from Bean Creek? ” I asked 
the next man I met. 

“ You’re plumb off the road,” answered the 
man. “You took the wrong turn back yon at 
the mill.” 

“ How far is Bean Creek from the mill? ” I 
asked, hopelessly. 

“It ain’t fur,” said the man; “it’s about 
three quarters, I reckon.” 

I am sure that Bean Creek was fully a mile 
from the mill. I reached it by nightfall. I 
might have passed it by had I not seen a girl 
watering a horse at a stream. As it was, I 
drew rein and inquired of the girl how far I was 
from Bean Creek. 

“ Bean Creek? ” she repeated, staring at me 
in amazement. “ Why, laws! mom, this yer is 
Bean Creek.” 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


225 


Bean Creek in sight consisted of one house 
and a store a quarter of a mile away from it. 

“ Where does Samuel Carpenter live? ” I in- 
quired. 

The girl pointed to the one house. 

Father boarded at Samuel Carpenter’s. I 
rode on slowly, old Bay dejectedly drooping his 
head. Aunt Sabina’s horse seemed to under- 
stand that he was taking sad tidings to father. 
All around the mountain sides were covered 
with felled trees, but I could not see the saw- 
mill. Probably I would find father at the house. 
I rode up and dismounted. 

The door of the house stood wide open. A 
woman advanced to it and stared at me curi- 
ously. 

“ Does Doctor Martin board here? ” I asked. 

'‘He’s been livin’ yer,” said the woman. 
“You mean the doctor with the sawmill, I 
reckon? ” 

“ Yes,” I assented. “ Is he in? ” 

“ Laws! no,” said the woman; “he’s moved 
the sawmill down to Bear Waller.” 

“ Where is Bear Wallow? ” I asked. 

“ It’s far,” said the woman. 

“ Is it a mile? ” I was wondering if I could 
get to Bear Wallow before black dark. 

“ It’s a good many mile,” said the woman. 
‘ ‘ You couldn’t git thar to-night. Yer boss ain’t 
much good at travelin’ ; he’s plumb played out. 

15 


226 


Cis Martin. 


No, you can’t go to Bear Waller to-night. I 
reckon you’ll have to put up yer.” 

There was nothing else to do. I entered the 
house and sat down. 

By and by I asked if somebody would feed 
my horse. 

“Thar ain’t arybody ’round,” said the woman. 
“I reckon mebbe as thar’s corn in the barn. 
The men folks has gone to Bear Waller.” She 
scrutinized me closely. “Be you ary kin to the 
doctor? ” she questioned. 

I told her that I was the doctor’s daughter, 
and then asked her if I couldn’t get some one 
around to go down to Bear Wallow right away 
with a message to my father. 

“You couldn’t git ary one to do it to-night,” 
returned the woman. “Jim Horn up yon to the 
store might be willin’ to go down thar fer you 
to-morrow. You’ll have to git yer supper and 
yer bed yer. Supper’ll be ready after a while. 
I reckon mebbe as thar’s corn or hay or some’n 
in the barn.” 

I went down to the little dark barn, and groped 
around for the corn and hay, while old Bay 
nickered impatiently. Then I returned to the 
house. I would have to eat some supper in 
order to keep up my strength. Father and I 
would be obliged to start off at once on our 
belated journey. I must be a help, not a hin- 
drance, to father. 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


227 


“ Supper’ll be ready pretty soon now,” said 
my landlady; “I jest sent my gal after the 
meal.” 

Then the woman dispatched her boy to the 
lot to catch and kill a chicken, and she prepared 
it and put it to cook in a pot that had not been 
washed from the previous meal. When the girl 
returned Mrs. Carpenter made some corn cakes, 
and by and by we had supper. 

I did not look at my supper in father’s board- 
ing house as I ate it ; but bad as it was, it put 
me in a more wholesome frame of mind. Of 
course if anyone were ill up at grandpapa’s,' 
father would receive a telegram; it did not 
follow at all that anyone must be dangerously 
ill. Or it might be that Jack intended leaving the 
iron mine and resuming the charge of the sawmill 
below the big dam, and was sending father a mes- 
sage to that effect. It came to me as I sat there 
at the dirty table, with the woman and children 
staring at every mouthful that I ate, that people 
did send telegrams on business, and a load was 
lifted from my heart. When I finished my 
supper I asked to be shown to a bedroom. 

Laws!” exclaimed the woman, I ain’t got 
ary bedroom fer a gal.” 

“Where am I to sleep?” I inquired, help- 
lessly. 

“You’ll have to sleep in the room yon with 
me and the children, ’ said Mrs. Carpenter. 


228 


Cis Martin. 


I rebelled against this arrangement. 

“ Where did father sleep? ” I asked. “ I can 
sleep in father’s bed.” 

“ His bed’s tore up,” said the woman. “ The 
children kin sleep on the floor and let you have 
their bed.” 

Again I was obliged to submit to circum- 
stances. 

I am confident that father’s bed was not torn 
up at all ; I knew when I set about undressing 
that the woman was curious to see what I wore ; 
she never took her eyes off me during the per- 
formance. Her eyes wandered with interest to 
my satchel when I opened it, and I think that 
my nightgown astonished her very much. But 
I felt very miserable as I lay down on the chil- 
dren’s bed. Yet I determined to sleep and be 
strengthened. If mother were ill, father and I 
would start for New York immediately. Mother 
would get well when she saw father once more 
at home. I turned away from the eyes of the 
curious Mrs. Carpenter, but, notwithstanding 
my good resolutions, I did not go to sleep. 

The door between the kitchen and bedroom 
had been left open. There were two cats in the 
kitchen, and all night long they rolled over the 
floor, together with the pot in which the chicken 
had been cooked for supper, audibly licking the 
remains. 

I rose very early in the morning and dressed. 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 229 

Mrs. Carpenter was up before me. She had 
started to make the kitchen fire, but discon- 
tinued her work and came and stood in the door 
to watch me dressing. 

“ ril help you get breakfast,” I said, for I 
had made up my mind to partake of a good 
breakfast before I found father. ‘ ‘ I’ll get the 
water for the chicken.” I had heard the woman 
kill a chicken before she went to making the 
fire. 

Thereupon I carried the dinner pot off to the 
spring, and washed it thoroughly and brought it 
to the house full of water. . I also washed the 
chicken thoroughly and put it on in clean water. 
Then I went down to the barn and fed old Bay 
and put the saddle upon him. 

After I had eaten my breakfast I brought old 
Bay out of the barn and, mounting him, in- 
quired my way to Bear Wallow. 

As I rode along in the beautiful early morn- 
ing the same feeling of depression that I had 
experienced on the previous day came over me, 
and similar horrible and realistic pictures pre- 
sented themselves. I said to myself that I was 
cold and unfeeling. I had eaten my supper 
and gone to bed ; I had got out of bed hungry, 
and had even taken the trouble to wash the 
mountain woman’s pot and her chicken in order 
to have a good breakfast. I said to myself that 
always I would remember my own selfishness 


230 


Cis Martin. 


at the time when I carried the telegram in my 
pocket and rode through the Tennessee moun- 
tains looking for father. 

Mrs. Carpenter had directed me to Bear 
Wallow by an old and unused wagon road. 
Twice I was obliged to dismount and lead old 
Bay around fallen trees. I wondered how father 
had managed to move the sawmill, until finally 
I came upon the better road. I suppose it took 
me about two hours to reach Bear Wallow. 

I went down to it by a sudden, steep descent, 
old Bay walking sideways and holding back. 
Below was the rushing race and the millwheel, 
rapidly turning. Busy life was going on in 
Bear Wallow. The air was filled with the sound 
of the sawing, and now and then I could hear 
the voice of a man giving orders. Then I saw 
father. He was standing with his back to me. 
He was in his shirt sleeves, and he was evidently 
directing some men who were rolling a huge log 
toward the mill. I will never forget the look 
of astonishment on father’s face when he turned 
and saw me coming down the road on old Bay. 

He came forward to meet me, walking rapidly. 
His cheeks flushed as he helped me out of the 
saddle. 

“ Well, Cecelia,” he said, “ what is it? ” 

I could not say a word. I just put my hand 
into my pocket and brought out that ugly little 
brown envelope and gave it to father. 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


231 


A telegram? ” said father, and he got white 
around the lips. Then he tore it open. 

I watched father read the telegram through ; 
I watched him tear it into little bits and scatter 
them around upon the ground as if he did not 
know what he was doing. I saw his face change 
from red to white and back to red again, while 
his hands trembled. Then I caught hold of his 
arm. 

- “ O, father,” I whispered, “ is it mother?” 

My father looked at me as if he did not 
understand. 

‘ ‘ Mother ? ” he utterted, wonderingly . ‘ ‘ What 
about mother. Cissy? ” 

Then I cried with a wild, alarming cry, “O, 
father, is it Jack? Jack has been hurt in the 
mine. O, father. Jack isn’t killed? ” 

My father looked at me, his senses returning. 

Mother and Jack are all right. Cissy,” he 
said, in a tender way, and he patted my head 
and lifted my face and kissed me. “ Did you 
think that something had happened to mother 
or Jack? You were a brave little girl to come 
all the way over to Bear Wallow, carrying a 
telegram that you imagined contained such 
direful tidings.” He smoothed my hair and 
continued, reassuringly: *‘No, dear, mother is 
getting strong and well again, and Jack is com- 
ing on finely. You shouldn’t have worried 
yourself about the telegram. You should have 


232 


Cis Martin. 


sent it by one of the Roan men. It was busi- 
ness. Why, Cissy, you are not still frightened 
about mother and Jack? The message had 
nothing to do whatever with either mother or 
Jack. Doesn’t that content you? Must 1 tell 
you that the business is just something about 
your poor old father — that Kirk thinks he can 
find a better partner than your poor old father? ” 

I looked up; indignation filled my breast. 
“Father,” I said, passionately, “I hate Kirk.” 

“ Jack is a wonderful boy,” said father, in an 
absent-minded way, “ a truly wonderful boy. 
He foresaw long ago that something like this 
would happen. He hasn’t trusted Kirk for some 
time. I was very foolish. Cissy,” he added; “I 
trusted Kirk.” 

We sat down on the great trunk of a felled 
tree, and after a while I spoke, telling father 
how mother wanted to have us all home to- 
gether. 

“The Tennessee mountains are very miser- 
able,” I said. “ Father, let us go home.” 

“Cissy,” said my father, “you ought to be 
with your mother. Your mother wants you.” 

“She wants you more than me, father,” I 
said. 

“ I intend to go to her; I hope to go to her 
before very long,” continued father. “ I am 
hungry for the sight of your mother and the 
children. I want Jack Xq live with his people. 


The Ride to Bean Creek. 


233 


I, too, wish us all to be together.” A strange 
eagerness came into his face as he continued : 

But I cannot return to New York poor, Cissy; 
that is out of the question. There are other 
ways of making money than by getting out 
timber. Cissy, my dear little girl, the Tennessee 
mountains are full of ore.” 


234 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Dolph Takes Command* 

F ather laughed when I declared that I 
wanted to be with him wherever he was 
in the Tennessee mountains. 

“ I won’t be stationary, Cissy,” he said. ‘‘ It 
would tire you out to try to keep along with 
your old father.” 

Then I said, mournfully, that I wished he 
wouldn’t look for ore. 

I do not like your living at Roan, with no 
one but Dolph Slade for company, ” father con- 
tinued, after a while. “ I wish that you and 
Jack were together. It almost seems as if 
neither Jack nor I truly appreciate our great- 
est blessing. Isn’t it possible for you to pre- 
vail upon your brother to return to Roan? ” 

To this I answered no; I was sure it was 
not possible, and I said that it wasn’t the right 
thing for father to be traveling about in the 
mountains, and Jack working in an iron mine, 
and I in Aunt Sabina’s house at Roan. 

“No,” agreed father, in a perplexed way, 
“ it is all wrong. Cissy, my dear, won’t you go 
up North to your mother? ” 

“Father,” I asked, disconsolately, after shak- 
ing my head in regard to going up North, “is 


Dolph Takes Command. 


235 


it right to deceive mother ? What would mother 
think if she knew that you had spent the winter 
at Bean Creek and that Jack and I were not 
keeping our promise to her? ” 

‘ ‘ I am the only one of the trio who is keep- 
ing his promise,” said father, laughing; ‘T am 
still hunting a fortune. Well,” he added, se- 
riously, “ I am confident that there’s plenty of 
money in the ore. There is a man down the 
railroad that I am thinking about making a 
proposition to. He’s a fair and square man, 
and he has the capital. I’m not half sorry to 
let the lumber business go. It would have been 
a wise thing long ago to have turned my atten- 
tion to ore.” 

After that, during the time I was with father, 
he was in a cheerful frame of mind. It was his 
intention to go over to Bald Mountain just as 
soon as he could get away from Bear Wallow. 
He said that he would let me hear from him as 
frequently as possible, and that he would con- 
tinue to send his letters to mother through me 
and the Roan post office. 

“We must keep on deceiving mother for a 
while,” he said. “We cannot do otherwise. 
And my dear little daughter must not desert 
Jack and me for New York and have mother 
worried. Some day we will all start out in 
triumph from Aunt Sabina’s house. We cannot 
go unless we go in triumph, can we, Cissy? ” 


236 


Cis Martin. 


I tried to smile, but I felt very discouraged 
about the prospect of making money out of ore. 
Would it be years and years before we saw 
mother ? 

I returned to Roan, accompanied by a boy 
from the sawmill at Bear Wallow. Dolph Slade 
was on the lookout for me. He hadn’t gone to 
his home at all. 

“ I was feared some of them steam-mill fellers 
would come over and put up in our house,” he 
explained when I exclaimed at his presence. 
He was certainly a brave boy, and I felt sure 
that he would make a good preacher. 

The news contained in the telegram that I 
carried over to Bean Creek and subsequently 
down to Bear Wallow had already reached the 
ears of the people on Roan Mountain. They 
could not understand why it was that father 
was called upon to relinquish his position as 
lumber dealer and general mill manager. Some 
concluded that it was the result of the innova- 
tion of the steam sawmills, and in this it is 
probable they were not altogether wrong. But 
if Kirk had listened to father in the beginning, 
there would have been no opposition works to 
contend with. 

Jake Mudd gave it as his opinion that Kirk 
was a rascal, and Dolph Slade declared vehe- 
mently that of course Kirk was a rascal. 

Everyone was interested, however, in the 


Dolph Takes Command. 


237 


idea of father hunting ore in the Tennessee 
mountains. The boy whom father engaged for 
his messenger was hailed on the road and ques- 
tioned closely. The mountain people began 
talking in a familiar and jocular way about what 
father was doing over on Bald Mountain. 

“ The doctor was ridin’ along one night over 
yon on Bald Mountun,” said the gristmill woman, 
sitting in the post office, with her feet on the 
rounds of the chair and her arms embracing her 
knees, ‘ ‘ and it was gittin’ black dark. Them 
men folks at Bald Mountun ain’t gunno have 
arybody foolin’ with them. A feller stops the 
doctor’s horse plumb in the road, and hollers 
out, ‘ Air you the deputy marshal? ’ ‘ No,’ hol- 

lers the doctor back, ‘ let go my bridle ; I’m no 
deputy marshal — I’m plain John Martin, and 
I’m lookin’ for ore.’ 

“ Yer paw is a wonderful man,” continued 
Mrs. Slade ; “ he’s got a powerful head on him, 
but I reckon, Cis, as he’s makin’ more fun than 
enough fer them people over yon on Bald 
Mountun. ‘ Air you the deputy marshal? ’ says 
one o’ the distellery fellers, clutchin’ the doc- 
tor’s bridle, and fingerin’ his gun. ‘ No,’ says 
the doctor, ‘ I’m plain John Martin, and I’m 
lookin’ fer ore.’ Them Bald Mountun people 
don’t let nary officer into that thar country— 
but the doctor he’s jest a-scourin’ it, huntin’ fer 


ore. 


238 


Cis Martin. 


So I continued to hear stories of father here 
and there on the mountain, and every now and 
then the messenger arrived with letters. Jack 
also wrote occasionally, and I lived on in Aunt 
Sabina’s little house, with no one but Dolph 
Slade for company, and kept up the deception 
toward mother, writing about father and Jack 
as if I saw them every day, and as if Jack and 
I were faithfully fulfilling our promise. 

“You can truthfully say to mother, ” Jack 
wrote to me, “ that I am going ahead with my 
studies, for I am. There’s an old fellow works 
in the mine who knows Latin and Greek and 
everything else, and he’s giving me lessons at 
night.” 

Thereupon I told mother that Jack was 
coming on nicely with his studies, and that 
while father was not willing to return imme- 
diately to New York and would not listen to 
the idea of our taking boarders, I thought that 
eventually I might be able to persuade him to 
give the subject attention and allow us to take 
boarders in New York as he had allowed us to 
keep post office in the Tennessee mountains ; and 
then I related to mother some amusing tales 
about the people’s letters, but I did not tell her 
that the sawmill below the big dam was being 
operated by a man who was Kirk’s partner, and 
not father, and I never spoke of the steam saw- 
mills nor of father hunting ore on Bald Moun- 


Dolph Takes Command. 


239 


tain. But I felt sorry when I thought that, in- 
deed, I might soon be able to persuade father 
to return to the home in New York, for I knew 
that he would not be persuaded until the ore 
business proved a complete failure and he was 
a broken-down man. Then he and Jack and I 
would go back to New York, and mother and I 
would keep a boarding house in the town, and 
everybody would declare that it was a great pity 
Doctor Martin had ever been so rash as to go to 
Tennessee, and, for mother’s sake, perhaps Jack 
would be prevailed upon to attend college free of 
charge. It was a very different picture from 
the one we had planned about returning rich 
and prosperous. 

One day father’s messenger rode over from 
Bald Mountain bringing me a very important 
letter, inclosing another important letter. I 
was to carry the inclosed letter to a prominent 
business man in the Southern city and to re- 
ceive his written answer. The boy would wait 
at Roan until my return. I could not help 
thinking it strange that father should have in- 
trusted me to do this work for him, and Jake 
Mudd, who had walked in beside the messenger, 
declared that it was indeed exceedingly strange. 

‘‘ I will get a day off and go down to the city 
in your place, Cis,” he said. “ How would that 
do?” 

I answered that it wouldn’t do at all ; father 


240 


Cis Martin. 


had asked me to attend to the business for him. 
“ Of course,” I said, “ I am only a girl, but if 
father wishes me to see a man on business, I 
shall certainly do it.” 

When the mountain people heard that I was 
going to the city the following morning they 
began to speculate as to the cause of my jour- 
ney. Was I going to procure a lot of plunder ” 
wherewith to trim up Aunt Sabina’s little house? 
Was I going to buy curtains for the windows 
and a mat to lay before the door? 

“Laws!” said the gristmill woman, “Cis 
ain’t botherin’ her head about no sech fixin’s as 
that — she’s wantin’ some new clothes. She’s 
lived yer in the mountuns a powerful long time, 
and she’s had her clothes burnt up once, and 
she’s taught school in them frocks her aunt sent 
her from New York State till they’s most wore 
out. Cis is goin’ down yon to git herself a 
good-lookin’ set o’ clothes fer to sport up to the 
church a-Sunday. Cis ain’t so bad-lookin’ when 
she’s got on a new frock, and she knows it, and 
some other folks knows it too.” 

Mrs. Slade was in the post office talking to 
one of the sawmill men, and she winked across 
at me and laughed heartily as she finished her 
sentence. 

“Cis,” she said, after a while, “I do hope 
you git off to-morrow. I hope, at least, it don’t 
set in to rain till you git yer plunder safe into 


Dolph Takes Command. 


241 


the narry gauge. But if it’s rainin’ when you 
git off at the station, jest lay over at Mag Mil- 
ler’s and don’t run no risks. Once Tom he 
let a big lot o’ Aunt Sabina’s plunder fall into 
the river when the water was high.” 

“I reckon I’ll have to git an extry hoss from 
maw to meet you at the station, teacher,” said 
Dolph. “I reckon I’ll have to git a strong 
hoss, so’s we kin carry up that thar plunder.” 

Poor Dolph was very much disappointed when 
I confided to him that there wouldn’t be any 
plunder ; I would have nothing but a message 
for father. 

“Sure you ain’t foolin’ me, teacher?” he 
asked. 

The skies were a heavy gray the next morn- 
ing. When it rained hard in the Tennessee 
mountains the rivers swelled considerably, and 
often the mail boy was obliged to wait at the 
station until the waters went down. 

“ If it’s rainin’, I won’t let Dolph go to meet 
you,” said Mrs. Slade, who had taken it upon 
herself to spend the day with her son. “Jest 
you lay over at Mag Miller’s with yer plunder.” 

“ O, I hope it won’t rain,” I said. I did not 
like to think of father’s letter having to lay over 
with me at Mag Miller’s. 

The man whom I called on in the city was 
named Mr. Franklin George. I went to his 
office and was glad to find him in. He seemed 
16 


242 


Cis Martin. 


surprised when I delivered my message, but he 
tore open father’s letter and read it through 
attentively. After that he asked me a great 
many questions about father, some of which 
were not easy to answer, and I almost wished I 
had let Jake Mudd take my place. Mr. George 
inquired of me if I were Doctor Martin’s 
daughter, and was astonished to learn that I 
had been living at Roan for two years. I knew 
that father’s letter must be about ore, for every 
now and then Mr. George would start to ask 
me a question regarding the ore in the moun- 
tain and would catch himself up and laugh and 
say, “Well, I don’t guess you could tell me any- 
thing about that,” and I felt certain that it would 
have been better for me to have let Jake Mudd 
take a day off and attend to this business. Mr. 
George talked as if he knew father very well, 
and he inquired after the other members of the 
family, and seemed pleased when he heard that 
mother and the children had returned to grand- 
papa’s. 

“ I met Mrs. Martin and the rest of your 
people about three years back, ” he said. ‘ ‘ I was 
charmed with the doctor.” 

He had begun to write his answer to father’s 
letter ; he glanced up from the sheet of paper 
as he spoke, and there came to me a horrible 
fear that father had only seen this man once, 
had in turn been charmed with him, and was 


Dolph Takes Command. 243 

asking him to go into partnership with him in 
the ore business. 

“ There was a boy,” Mr. George said a minute 
later, again looking up from the letter, ' ‘ a 
handsome fellow with black eyes and dimples. 
His name was Jack. Did you say that Jack 
returned to New York with Mrs. Martin and the 
children?” 

When I told Mr. George that Jack was work- 
ing in an iron mine quite a distance from Roan 
he gave a prolonged whistle. 

“ And you are at Roan? ” he asked, regarding 
me closely. 

Yes,” I answered, “ I’m at Roan.” 

I am sure Mr. George thought we were a 
queer kind of a family. It did seem strange for 
me to be at Roan, and some people might blame 
father for allowing it. Mr. George was gray- 
haired and a real Southern gentleman, and 
somehow I did not like the idea of his regard- 
ing us as a queer family, and I wanted him 
above all to think kindly of father as he 
answered his letter; so I explained why it was 
that I was living at Roan. 

'‘Isn’t teaching the mountain school rather 
uncongenial work? ” he asked. 

I said I didn’t mind teaching the mountain 
school even if it wasn’t very congenial work. 

“ The children, as a rule, are not overbright, 
are they? ” he questioned. 


244 


Cis Martin. 


‘'Dolph Slade is very bright,” I returned. 
Then I told him all about Dolph, and he laughed 
pleasantly over the story of Mrs. Slade giving 
me Dolph for a Christmas gift. 

The letter to father was very long. He fold- 
ed it, put it in an envelope, and handed it to me. 

“ It is raining,” he said. “You will hardly 
start for Roan to-day? ” 

“I will get there if I can,” I answered. 
“There’s a boy at Roan waiting to carry the 
letter over to Bald Mountain to father,” I said. 

“ O, well, there’s no desperate hurry about 
the letter,” said Mr. George. “Don’t run any 
risks of getting wet on account of the letter. 
Yes, Miss Martin, I was charmed with the 
doctor. I should like very much to meet him 
again.” Then I knew that there were no good 
tidings in that letter for father. 

It was raining very hard by afternoon. The 
storm beat against the window of the narrow- 
gauge car as we rumbled up the mountain. I 
felt certain that I would be obliged to remain all 
night at the station. I was very miserable 
about the business connected with my visit to 
the Southern city and my call on Mr. Franklin 
George. Jake Mudd would have been better 
able to answer those unfinished questions about 
the quality of the ore. I could not help liking 
Mr. George, yet I was confident that he had re- 
fused to become father’s partner. 


Dolph Takes Command. 


245 


But, then, my heart was not in the ore business. 
Father had spent five years of his life wearing 
himself out, while Mr. Kirk pocketed the timber 
money, and I said to myself that he could not 
possibly live through five years of the ore busi- 
ness. 

I thought of Mr. George sitting in his com- 
fortable office and of my father riding over the 
mountains. I thought of father’s boarding 
house at Bean Creek. Even if this pleasant, gen- 
ial gentleman were to accept the proposition that 
father had made him in the letter, he would 
continue to live on comfortably in his luxurious 
office while his partner. Doctor John Martin, the 
author of Semiramis, would overlook the rough 
work on the mountain. The world seemed an 
exceedingly unfair place to me as I rode up the 
narrow gauge on that rainy afternoon. 

I was surprised when I stepped off at the sta- 
tion to find Dolph Slade waiting for me. He 
did not have Uncle Ben’s old Bay, but a great, 
tall dun horse, which I recognized as belonging 
over at the steam sawmill. I could not possibly 
mistake it, for it was undoubtedly the tallest 
horse in the neighborhood of Roan. 

“Dolph! ” I cried, in astonishment, “I did 
not expect you to meet me. I had quite made 
up my mind to spend the night at the station.” 

“ We kin git through the rivers all right,” 
said Dolph. 


246 


Cis Martin. 


“ Are you sure it will be safe? ” I asked. 

''Yes, teacher,” said Dolph, "it’s safe.” 

Even though the letter from Mr. George con- 
tained no good tidings, I was anxious that it 
reach father at the earliest opportunity. I hated 
to think of him over on Bald Mountain waiting 
impatiently for the messenger. 

" Why didn’t you ride old Bay, Dolph?” I 
asked, as I mounted the tall dun. 

" ’Cause he’s lame,” said Dolph, promptly. 

' ' But why did you borrow a horse from the 
steam sawmill people?” I questioned. "You 
must know that I don’t like to ride a horse be- 
longing to the steam sawmill people.” 

Then Dolph Slade told me another story, for 
old Bay wasn’t lame at all. 

" Maw bought Dun from ’em,” he said. 

The future preacher jumped upon the horse 
in front of me and grasped the reins. "He 
ain’t used to arybody but men folks drivin’ 
him,” he explained. 

It was a good thing that Dun was both tall 
and strong or we would never have got through 
the rivers. They were deep and turbulent. 
In the middle of the first of them I said to 
Dolph, in a frightened voice, that I wanted to 
go back and stay all night with Mag Miller, but 
Dolph declared that we had gone through the 
worst part, and that it would be dangerous to 
try to turn around. 


Dolph Takes Command. 


247 


My Christmas gift was no coward. The dun 
horse struggled desperately in some of those 
rushing streams, and whether it were dangerous 
or not, endeavored to turn round, but always 
Dolph declared that we were through the deepest 
part, and always he urged Dun onward in a firm, 
reassuring voice. 

As we trotted along the muddy roads I found 
my breath and scolded my foolhardy driver. 

“ I don’t believe that your mother knows you 
came to the station to meet me,” I said, “ and 
it was very wrong of you to come. I would 
rather spend a month at the station than put 
my life in danger at every stream. Your own 
life is in danger too ; we may be drowned ; the 
horse may stumble ; there is no telling in the 
world what may happen to us.” 

‘‘You said you wanted to git back home to- 
night,” said Dolph, in justification. 

“It is not right for anyone to risk life,” I 
said. “ Father would never trust me again if 
he thought I was foolish enough to risk my life. 
The mail boy could get through these streams 
before they would be safe for me. I don’t be- 
lieve he is coming this evening. I could have 
sent the letter by him to-morrow.” 

Then we reached another stream. 

“ Dolph,” I pleaded, “let me get off. I would 
rather go back and spend the night at that little 
house we just passed than try to get to Roan. 


248 


Cis Martin. 


Father does not want me to risk my life for a 
letter.” 

But Dolph ordered Dun to step into the little 
river. 

“The horse is afraid!” I cried, “and I am 
afraid. He knows how deep it is ; he is trying 
to keep from stepping in. Dolph, let me off.” 

“ The water isn’t too deep for him,” said 
Dolph, stubbornly, and the next minute we 
were in fully four feet of water. 

“ Hold yer feet plumb out, teacher,” ordered 
Dolph. “We’ve got the powerfullest horse in 
Roan.” 

“ Dolph,” I implored, “ turn around and take 
me out.” 

“ Git along,” said Dolph to the horse. 

“Dolph Slade!” I cried, frantically, “I am 
your teacher. I command you to turn the horse 
around and take me out. I will be obeyed.” 

“ Git along!” called Dolph, and the dun horse 
struggled on and stood shivering upon the oppo- 
site bank. 

“ Thar we are! ” said Dolph, cheerfully^ 

But I was shivering as well as the dun horse. 
“ You are a bad boy, Dolph,” I said, “ and I 
liked you so much. I was telling a gentleman 
down in the city about you. If you are a bad boy 
now and will not obey your teacher, how do 
you think you can ever be a preacher when you 
grow to be a man? We are coming to another 


Dolph Takes Command. 


249 


river, and it’s narrow, and I know it is very- 
deep and dangerous. I am not going to, cross it.” 

“ Thar ain’t any house yer,” said Dolph. 

The tears were in my eyes. I looked help- 
lessly around and repeated that I would not 
cross another river. 

“You would git sick and die if you was to 
stay out yer in the mountuns in the rain all 
night, teacher,” said Dolph. “What would 
the doctor do if you was to git sick and die? ” 

But when we came to the next stream it was 
rushing so rapidly that even with the prospect 
of spending the night in the mountains in the 
rain, even with the thought that I might get sick 
and die from the exposure, I reached my arms 
around Dolph Slade’s waist and grasped the 
bridle. 

“Hoa!” I called, “Hoa!” 

The tall horse gladly answered my com- 
mand. 

“ I will never go into that water, Dolph,” I 
said. 

“We kin git through it all right, teacher,” 
returned Dolph. 

He tried to regain possession of the bridle, 
but could not. He cried, “ Git along!” to the 
dun horse, and stuck his naked feet imperatively 
into its sides ; but the tallest horse in Roan pre- 
ferred to listen to my “Hoa!” and obey my 
frantic pull upon the bridle. 


250 


Cis Martin. 


Then Dolph turned around to me. Teach- 
er,” he said, imploringly, “ please give me the 
bridle.” 

“ No,” I returned, “ I have got the bridle 
and I am going to keep it. I am sure that you 
ran away from your mother. I wonder at your 
doing such a foolish thing ; I thought you had 
so much sense. We will have to stay here in 
the mountains all night, and perhaps we will 
both catch cold and die, but I would rather die 
from catching cold than to be drowned.” But I 
didn’t want to do either. It was horrible to 
think of sitting there all night on the back of 
the dun horse. “ I don^ see why,’' I added, 
“ Jake Mudd didn’t prevent your coming to the 
station to meet me. Did Jake Mudd know you 
were coming?” 

''No,” said Dolph, "Jake Mudd isn’t at 
Roan.” 

"Isn’t at Roan!” I repeated. "Where is 
he?” 

' ' He went over yon on the mountuns this 
mornin’,” answered Dolph, flourishing his hand 
to the left. Then my Christmas gift again or- 
dered the dun horse to " git along,” and stuck 
his bare feet into its sides. 

"He won’t stir,” I said ; " he’s got more sense 
than you.” 

I shall never forget the expression on Dolph 
Slade’s face when he turned a second time and 


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Dolph Takes Command. 251 

looked at me. He had tried every way but one 
to get the horse into the rushing stream ; it was 
necessary that he try the one way left him. 

‘‘Teacher,” he said, with a hoarseness in his 
voice, “the doctor has come back to Roan, and 
he’s awful sick.” 

I let go the bridle, and the tall horse, follow- 
ing Dolph’s orders, stepped carefully into the 
stream. Dolph cried to me to hold my feet out, 
and after a brief struggle we were on the other 
bank. 

“Jake Mudd,” said Dolph, “has gone over 
yon on the mountun to fetch Jack.” 


252 


Cis Martin. 


CHAPTER XV. 

The Tfitjmph of Semhamis." 

I T was still raining when we rode up to Aunt 
Sabina’s. A large man stood in the door- 
way watching us ; he had evidently seen us 
turning the corner. This man was no other than 
Mr. Christopher Ford, the manager of the steam 
sawmills. He came out into the lot and assisted 
me to dismount. 

“ Ah,” he said, regarding Dolph with a sort of 
curious admiration, ‘T thought it was you who 
had got away with the dun horse. I am glad, 
indeed, that you brought Miss Martin. Take 
the horse along back to the woods stable.” 

“Yes, sir,” said Dolph, politely. 

‘ ‘ I am certainly glad you managed to get here. 
Miss Martin,” continued Mr. Ford. Then he 
looked at me intently, and went on : “ We are not 
enemies — that is all foolishness ; and I am in your 
debt. It is my turn to play the doctor. You 
see, there is no one here, no man, at least, to 
look after your father. These mountain people 
are kind-hearted, but they aren’t possessed of 
the sense of Jake Mudd. I suppose Dolph 
told you that Jake Mudd has gone for your 
brother. So it was necessary for some of the 
other ‘ furriners ’ to step in and lend a helping 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.’* 253 

hand. We’ll not be able to get the mountain 
doctor until the waters go down; he isn’t as 
brave as you and Dolph Slade.” 

Mr. Ford would never have called me brave 
if he had seen me grasping the bridle with my 
arms around Dolph’s waist. 

“ Who brought father here? ” I asked, timidly. 
I could not call Aunt Sabina’s little house home. 

‘ ‘ He rode the gray mare ; no one was with 
him,” returned Mr. Ford. Then he added, I 
am going to look after your father as long as he 
needs me; I come from New York State too, 
and I have always entertained the friendliest 
possible feelings toward the doctor.” 

We stepped into the hall, and I went up the 
stairs, Mr. Ford following. I could hear fa- 
ther’s cheerful voice in the room above. I turned 
on the landing and looked at Mr. Ford in be- 
wilderment. He had led me to understand that 
my father was very ill. Then I heard what fa- 
ther was saying. He was talking about the big 
dam. “ Yes,” he explained, “ I am putting the 
finishing touches to the largest dam that has 
ever been built in the Tennessee mountains.” 

I went into the room directly, forgetting all 
about my wet clothes. Father was lying back 
among the pillows; his face was flushed; he 
was talking rapidly. Sitting in the room were 
two of the steam-mill men who had come into 
the mountains with Mr. Ford. They were lis- 


254 


Cis Martin. 


tening, comprehending the pitifulness of it all, 
to father’s hopes and expectations poured out 
upon them while Kirk’s other partner was opera- 
ting the sawmill below the big dam. 

Father’s whole face lighted up when I entered 
the room. 

''Why, Cissy,” he said, putting his arms 
around me and kissing me, " so you have come 
back to the Tennessee mountains ? I am glad 
of that.” 

Then he asked if it were raining, and I said 
yes^ and he bade me go change my dress, and I 
went out of the room. That night I sat by fa- 
ther’s bed holding his hand. The sawmill men 
remained in the house. Every now and then 
Mr. Christopher Ford came into the room and 
bandaged father’s head, walking softly as a 
woman. Father continued to talk to me as if I 
had just left grandpapa’s. 

" I am afraid you are worried about the chil- 
dren, Cissy,” he said, leaning toward me. " I 
am sure you did not expect to find your sisters 
and brothers running barefooted. But it won’t 
hurt them ; it will toughen them and make them 
strong. Your mother is troubling herself un- 
necessarily about Jack ; she thinks that he ought 
to be at school. He is thirteen years of age, 
and he does not care very much for his studies. 
He is of the opinion that Jake Mudd is not a 
first-class teacher. Jake Mudd,” he added, “ is 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.** 255 

a very fine young man ; he has a good head on 
his shoulders. Jack is inclined to be over crit- 
ical. The little girls and Tom are learning fast. 
But you would rather teach them, wouldn’t you, 
Cissy? Well, of course that will be very much 
better. We can give you a fine, large room for 
a schoolroom. You are pleased with the house, 
are you not? ” 

I nodded my head and answered that I liked 
the house very much. 

''The woodwork is fine, and some of the 
mantels superb,” said father. " In time we will 
furnish all the rooms in a suitable manner. 
Even after the fortune is made I have an idea 
not to give up the big hotel. We will invite 
some of our New York friends to spend a month 
in the mountains. I would like to see your 
Aunt Lavinia open her eyes when she sees the 
place to which I brought my people, to which I 
was cruel enough to bring my people. Your 
Aunt Lavinia will accept the invitation. Cissy? ” 

I said yes, that I was sure Aunt Lavinia 
would accept the invitation, and father contin- 
ued talking. 

"About Jack,” he said, "and your mother. 
I wish you could prevail upon your mother that 
it is foolish to worry over Jack. I have not the 
slightest intention in the world of allowing any 
of my children to go without an education. I 
am going to send Jack to college very shortly.” 


256 


Cis Martin. 


Then for a while my father forgot all about 
the Tennessee mountains. 

‘‘Cissy,’’ he inquired, “what is this trouble 
with the college? It seems to me that I was 
born to be a teacher. I delight in teaching. 
My dear little girl, it isn’t true that the college 
has dispensed with my services? 

“ I like this quiet, restful sort of life,” he 
went on, turning on his side on the bed that 
Aunt Sabina had kindly left behind. “ I like 
the neat, pretty little town. I like coming home 
in the evening to mother and the children. 
Little Margaret is growing rapidly ; I think she 
resembles her mother. Cissy,” and he laughed 
brightly, ‘ ‘ I have been dreaming about Marga- 
ret. I cannot drive the dream away. It does 
not seem as if I could have dreamed it all in a 
single night, it is such a long dream. In this 
dream we were all in a sort of wilderness, living 
among the oddest people, and every one of them 
called Margaret ‘little' Marg.’ It was very 
realistic ; I cannot think of Margaret without in 
my thoughts calling her ‘ little Marg.’ ‘ Little 
Marg! ’ ” he cried, sitting up in bed and gazing 
about him. “Where is ‘little Marg,’ Cissy? 
Where is your mother? ” 

Then again father was back in the Tennessee 
mountains. 

“Your mother is killing herself waiting on 
these mountain people,” he said. “ I must send 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.'* 257 

her and the children to yonr grandfather’s on 
a visit. That will brighten her up. 

“ Jack was right about Kirk,” he said, with a 
sigh. It was foolish of me to believe in Kirk, 
to put my whole trust in Kirk. Do you remem- 
ber the day you came riding down the road to 
Bear Wallow bringing me the telegram from 
Kirk ? You were frightened about the telegram , 
weren’t you. Cissy? You thought it contained 
bad news. Was it bad news? I forget. No, 
no ! it was good news ; it was from Kirk. You 
thought that your mother was sick, or that Jack 
had been hurt in the mines. Jack,” he repeated, 
starting up and listening, '‘when will he be 
here?” 

“Jack will be here very soon, father,” I re- 
turned. 

“ I am very glad,” he went on, “that Jack is 
coming away from the mines; but it did not 
hurt him to work in the mines; such things 
help to make a man or a boy. So you thought 
the telegram you brought over to Bear Wallow 
contained bad news? It didn’t turn out that 
way. Cissy, did you know that I have made a 
fortune at last? I am the richest man who has 
ever lived in these mountains. I am worth 
thousands and thousands of dollars ; I made it 
out of ore. Who am I? Am I a deputy mar- 
shal? No, let go the bridle. I am plain John 
Martin, and I’m looking for ore.” 

IV 


258 


Cis Martin. 


So father talked all through the night, while 
I sat holding his hand, and every now and then 
Mr. Christopher Ford changed the bandages on 
his hot head and gave him medicine. 

“ Cissy,” my father said to me, as the dawn 
came creeping into the room, “ didn’t you and 
your mother play at keeping post office once ? 
Whom did you get to take the post office when 
you heard I was rich ? Was Jake Mudd still 
there ? We are going home, for we are rich. 
You know, dear, that I wrote a historical novel, 
called Semiramis. Your Aunt Lavinia did not 
entertain a high opinion of the work, but it has 
succeeded, and we are fabulously rich.” 

The next day father lay very quiet. Mr. 
Ford said again that he was glad Dolph Slade 
had run off with the dun horse and brought me 
from the station ; but I could see that he was 
worried that the doctor could not get there. He 
said that men in the mountains ought to be 
used to deep water, and that they ought to have 
enterprise enough to build bridges of a suitable 
character. The doctor arrived the following 
morning, and I think Mr. Ford gave him orders 
what to do and what medicine to leave. 

That evening Jake Mudd returned to Roan, 
accompanied by Jack. 

My brother had grown considerably since I 
had last seen him ; he was very tall and broad. 
He had written that he was a rough -looking 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis/* 259 

fellow, but he did not appear rough when he 
came into the little room and stooped over and 
kissed father. Then he turned and looked at 
me and said, brokenly, “Father doesn’t know 
me. Cissy.” 

Jack and I were with father constantly. Mrs. 
Slade attended to our household affairs, and 
Mr. Ford dropped in several times a day. 

“ I know something of fevers,” said the man- 
ager of the steam sawmills, “ and I am from 
the same State as your father.” 

One day I went out into the hall when I heard 
Jack coming up the stairs. His questioning 
gaze met mine. 

“Jack,” I asked, “ought we to send for 
mother ? ” 

“No,” answered Jack. He did not go into 
father’s room directly, but walked to the win- 
dow in the hall and stood -there. I doubt if 
Jack saw anything outside the window. After 
a little he turned about to me. “Cissy,” he 
said, “ you and I have promised to take care of 
father. We are going to do it, and father will 
get well.” But I knew that my brother thought 
if we gave up and sent for mpther, that father 
would die. 

Father had been ill a week before I answered 
the last letter I had received from mother. It 
was impossible for me to write a cheerful letter, 
though I tried my best. I sat in the post office, 


260 


Cis Martin. 


looking down dissatisfied at the sheet of paper. 
It did not seem fair to father not even to hint 
at his illness. So I picked up my pen and added 
a postscript. It was short and simple, consisting 
merely of the words “ Father is not so well.” 

I had an extra trouble upon me at this time. 
That day I received the telegram for father I 
had just finished tying up Semiramis to send to 
a publisher. In my subsequent hurry I had 
left the manuscript lying on the table in the 
post office. Now I could not find it anywhere. 

Jake Mudd also helped us to nurse father. 
He was greatly perplexed over the disappear- 
ance of Semiramisy and blamed himself for not 
finding it and putting it safely away. After I 
had spent several days in a fruitless search I 
confided to Dolph that somebody had stolen 
Semiramis. 

It was at this period that I misjudged Dolph 
Slade. I came to the conclusion that he was 
not as fond of me as he pretended, that he was 
really a deceitful boy, for I could see plainly 
that he was not at all disturbed over the loss of 
Semiramis. 

“I reckon some day it’ll turn up, teacher,” 
he said. ’Tain’t no use worryin’ about it.” 

One morning the doctor and Mr. Ford con- 
sulted together outside the house. I always 
liked to question Mr. Ford after a consultation. 
I met him on the porch, and he said to me, in a 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.'* 261 

reassuring voice, that there was no reason in 
the world why father shouldn’t get well and 
strong again, provided all matters of a depress- 
ing character were kept from him and he was 
carefully and properly nursed. Mr. Ford did 
not quite like it that Jack and I had refused to 
send for mother. 

“I wish,” he said, “that we had a bit of 
cheering news to give him.” 

That afternoon Dolph Slade found me in the 
post office crying. I had been thinking about 
Semiramisy and how delightful it would be if the 
historical novel, instead of being lost, had been 
off at a publisher’s and we had received notice 
of its acceptance. What a cheering bit of news 
for father that would be ! 

“What you cryin’ fer, teacher?” inquired 
Dolph. 

“ O, Dolph,” I cried, “ who could have been 
mean enough to steal Semiramisf’' 

“Narybody,” said Dolph, and he went on 
into the kitchen. But in a little while he re- 
turned to the post office. “Teacher,” he ad- 
vised, gravely, “ I wouldn’t cry fer that thar 
book; some day it’ll turn up all right.” 

“Dolph!” I said, brushing away my tears, 
‘ ‘ I don’t believe you care if Semiramis never 
turns up.” 

“Well, teacher,” acknowledged Dolph, “I 
don’t want it to turn up.” 


262 


Cis Martin. 


He was standing before me, his hands in his 
pockets. He was the picture of guilt. 

“Dolph,” I said, ‘‘do you know who took 
Semiramis ? O, Dolph, you did’nt take Semira- 
mis f ” 

Dolph stared back at me. “Yes, mom, I 
did,’’ he answered. “ I took it and sent it away 
in the mail bag.” 

“Dolph,” I cried, in dismay, “without any 
stamps ? ” 

“ No, mom,” said Dolph; “ I put the stamps 
on it. I got them out the drawer, and I paid fer 
’em with some o’ them thar five cents.” 

But I was still full of alarm. 

“ Didn’t Jake Mudd know what it was ? ” I 
questioned. 

“ No, mom,” said Dolph, complacently; “ I 
told him it was Mr. Ford’s package.” 

“ O, Dolph!” I protested. 

“He wouldn’t left me send it if I hadn’t,” 
declared the future preacher. 

“ Dolph,” I asked next, “ how did you ad- 
dress the package ? ” 

My Christmas gift went reluctantly into the 
kitchen and returned with his book catalogue. 

“ I sent it to him,” he said, putting his finger 
upon a name surrounded by a great pencil 
mark. “You told me, teacher, he was the best 
publisher in the United States.” 

“ O, Dolph Slade,” I cried, in despair, “he 


The Triumph of ‘‘ Semiramis.” 263 

has had it already ! He has examined it and 
returned it once.” 

“ But he didn’t know it was good then,” said 
Dolph. 

Well, at least Semiramis was not lost. I sent 
a letter post haste to the best publisher in the 
United States, explaining to him about the mis- 
take and begging pardon for seeming to force 
Semiramis upon his attention. 

When I went up stairs father called me by 
name and smiled at me in the old fond way. 
Jack and I sat beside his bed, and we talked 
only of pleasant things, of mother’s last letter, 
and of Tom and the little girls; but both Jack 
and I were careful not to say anything about 
returning to New York, and we did not men- 
tion either the timber business or the ore. But 
father spoke of all three of these things after a 
while. 

“ I am an old man,” he said, ' ‘older than I 
ought to be counting the years, and I have in- 
dulged in foolish dreams. You and Jack will 
go to your mother by and by. Jack will know 
better than to believe a fortune is to be got out 
of either the timber or the ore of the Tennessee 
mountains unless one is backed by sufficient: 
capital and is dealing with honest men.” 

Then Jack and I knew that father thought he 
was going to die. 

“ I am glad you didn’t sencl for mother,” he 


264 


Cis Martin. 


said. *‘Poor little mother has experienced 
enough of sadness in the Tennessee mountains.” 
He talked to Jack about his education, advising 
him always to listen to his mother’s advice. 
“ It is a wise thing to listen to advice, my boy,” 
he went on. “I know it to my sorrow. I was 
never fit for anything but a teacher.” 

I entered the room one day when father was 
telling Jack that he had never been fit for any- 
thing but a teacher, and sat down in my rock- 
ing-chair beside the bed. Jack looked at me 
wonderingly. I suppose the happiness was 
shining in my eyes. When people are sick it 
is, of course, the correct thing not to break upon 
them suddenly with a wonderful piece of news ; 
but I did not think of that. 

“Father,” I began, “how can you say that 
you are fit for nothing but a teacher when you 
are the author of Semiramis ? ” 

Father laughed softly. “ That was a pleasant 
dream while it lasted. Cissy,” he said, “ but your 
Aunt Lavinia blamed me for it. She thought that 
a professor of Latin and Greek might have spent 
his evenings to better advantage. No doubt she 
was right.” 

“ Father,” I went on, “ suppose a good pub- 
lisher, the best publisher in the United States, 
were to accept Semiramis ! Suppose I had come 
in to tell you that the best publisher in the 
United States was going to publish Semiramis T 


The Triumph of “Semiramis.” 265 

Father’s face quivered all over. 

“ Cissy, my dear little girl,” he said, don’t 
talk like that. Such things have happened ; 
such a thing might have happened to me, but 
Semiramis was burned with the hotel. I thought 
of the children’s beds and of trying to save the 
building, but I utterly forgot Semiramis ^ 

‘‘ Jack didn’t forget it, father,” I whispered. 

“ Neither did Cissy,” said Jack, hoarsely. 

‘ ‘ And the thing that might have happened 
has happened, father,” I said, and I proceeded 
to tell about Dolph Slade sending the historical 
novel a second time to the great publisher, and 
how the manuscript was read by a new reader 
and approved by him, and how the publisher, 
answering my letter, had sent special thanks to 
Dolph. 

‘‘ So we’ll get the fortune in the Tennessee 
mountains after all!” cried Jack, exultantly. 
“ You’ll make a fortune after all, father.” 

Father laughed out, brightly. 

“I don’t know,” he said, ‘^who will have 
made a fortune. My girl and boy saved the 
book from the fire, and Dolph Slade sent it 
back to the publisher. Where is Dolph 
Slade?” 

Dolph answered the call for his presence, and 
stood beside the bed, blushing deeply when 
father patted his head and thanked him for sell- 
ing Semiramis, 


266 


Cis Martin. 


It never rains but it pours, and it is a delight- 
ful thing when it pours blessings. 

The morning following the* receipt of the 
most welcome of letters Mrs. Slade put her 
head in at the door of father’s room. Jack and 
I were making delightful plans, in which father 
joined, and Dolph Slade, quite reinstated in my 
good opinion, was sitting on his little stool 
beside my chair. 

The doctor’s come!” cried Mrs. Slade, with 
a humorous chuckle. She opened the door very 
wide, and mother passed swiftly by her. 

“ Why was I kept away? ” demanded mother, 
with her arms about father’s neck. “ Jack and 
Cissy are to go to grandpapa’s. I intend to 
stay in the Tennessee mountains with you.” 

“ Mother,” said Jack, “ we are all going back 
in triumph to New York.” 

'‘Mother,” I said, “father has made a for- 
tune.” 

“ Mis’ Martin,” explained Dolph Slade, “ that 
thar book is sold.” 

There never were happier people than we in 
the Tennessee mountains during the time of 
father’s convalescence. We listened to the 
whistle of the steam mill and heard of the suc- 
cess of Mr. Kirk’s new partner, and loved all 
the world. We thought the mountains were 
just perfectly beautiful, and I played the big 
fiddle for the mountaineers whenever they 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.'* 267 

wished. For while we waited in the Tennessee 
mountains the great publisher brought out Semir- 
amis and rushed its sale, and the critics took 
hold of it and spoke fluently in its favor. 

Jack and I laughed when Aunt Lavinia wrote 
to us about Semiramis. She said that it was the 
most wonderful book success of the day. She 
praised father’s mind unstintingly, and declared 
herself proud of the fact that he was a member 
of the family. 

Father received a letter from the college con- 
gratulating him upon the high character and 
deep thought of the historical novel, and he was 
much pleased. Then the president wrote ask- 
ing him as a favor to return to his old position, 
and we knew, when father told us about it, that 
he would rather be back at the college than any 
place else in the world. 

When the time eventually arrived for us to 
go to New York we encountered a difficulty — 
Dolph Slade wanted to accompany us. Father 
and mother had both made plans for Dolph. 
Father said that the boy should be educated, 
and mother intended to have him come to us 
when he was thirteen or fourteen and attend 
college from our house. 

I b’long to teacher,” Dolph Slade declared, 
emphatically. ‘'You give me to teacher, maw, 
and I’m goin’ up thar with her and ’tend school 
along with Jack Martin.” 


268 


Cis Martin. 


Laws! Dolph,” cried the wily mother, I 
ain’t keerin’ if you do go. I did give you to 
Cis.” 

She winked at me over her son’s head, but 
Dolph saw her and burst into wild weeping. 

“ You give me to teacher to keep,” he said, 
‘ ‘ and I want to learn a lot ; I want to be a 
furriner.” 

“Laws! Dolph,” said Mrs. Slade, “you kin 
go over yon to the steam sawmill and learn to 
be a furriner.” 

“ I don’t want to be a furriner like that thar 
big fat man,” howled Dolph, “ and I ain’t goin’ 
to be a sawmill feller. I want to be a furriner 
like the doctor’s folks; and you give me to 
teacher to keep, you know you did, maw.” 

I felt very sorry for my poor little Christmas 
gift, who must wait until he was thirteen or 
fourteen years of age before he could learn to 
be a foreigner. 

Mrs. Slade saw us off at the Roan Mountain 
station. I waved my hand to her outside the 
window of the little narrow-gauge car. She 
wore her best hat, and its bright feathers were 
trembling in the breeze. Dolph refused to show 
up at the end to say good-bye. 

We had changed cars at the Southern city 
and were moving rapidly northward in the fast 
express when the conductor came into our 
coach, holding a small boy by the hand. The 


The Triumph of “ Semiramis.*' 269 

boy was Dolph Slade. The future preacher 
had been discovered sitting on the car steps 
stealing a ride. Answering questions, he stated 
that he belonged to Cis Martin, who was riding 
inside the car ; whereupon the conductor, with 
humor and perplexity upon his face, brought 
my Christmas gift in to identify me. 

We could not help laughing at Dolph’s per- 
sistency, and father ordered that a telegram 
be sent to Roan to Mrs. Slade. “Well, Cissy,” 
he said, “ you can’t go back on your Christmas 
gift; Dolph was given to you to keep.” 

I put Dolph into the car seat near the win- 
dow, and as we rolled along I leaned back com- 
fortably, thinking of the life that was coming 
to us all. I was just as happy as I could be. I 
was not sorry, but glad, that we had lived in the 
Tennessee mountains. We were returning in 
triumph and with all the bitterness gone. In the 
fall Jake Mudd intended to enter the college in 
our town. Father had examined him, and said 
that he would be able to graduate in two years. 
It is strange that at that moment I should think 
of the time Jake Mudd had said to me that he 
was glad I was a girl. 

Then I looked at my Christmas gift and fell 
to wondering. He was leaving everything be- 
hind him — his cheerful mother and his father 
and the gristmill and the free mountain life. 
He was going into a strange world. 


270 


Cis Martin. 


Dolph,” I asked, laying my hand upon his 
arm, ‘‘why do you want to go to New York ? ’’ 
My Christmas gift refused to turn his head ; 
indeed, I am sure there were tears in his eyes, 
but he answered, promptly : 

“ Because I love the mountuns, teacher.*’ 



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